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I opened up Spotlight, typed '12*' to do some multiplication and it's been frozen for the last 20 minutes.
I am looking for how to restart the program/service/whatever it technically is, but it's not in the Force Quit menu, so what is the quickest way to kill this process without restarting my computer? (I am on Mac OS X Snow Leopard)
Damon
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 2 119
130
Depending on your OS and luck, it could actually be 1 of at least a few [services]:
mdsSystemUIServerSpotlightTo me, a while back when they were called feline names, I've had the same issue (as I was saying on the comments) and it was not Spotlight: it was the Menubar. Just like with spotlight, we simply have to kill it so it will be restarted by launchd.
For that, use the Activity Monitor and search for your [service].
Or you may instead use the Terminal, for instance:
killall Spotlight
And if that doesn't work, consider using sudo.
cregox
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 5 119
@Jonny there are two newer answers that might resolve it for you. Maybe it's the SystemUIServer or, in case you you can't find what might be blocking it, you can at least try logging off and back before rebooting. – cregox – 2014-08-23T14:32:32.397
Killing SystemUIServer did the trick for me. I'm on Yosemite Public Beta 2. – Thilak Rao – 2014-09-01T17:49:16.320
Dammit, in my latest comment I meant Quick Look UI Helper. :P – cregox – 2014-09-01T17:51:18.263
Running killall SystemUIServer on terminal fixed frozen spotlight issue on Yosemite. Everything immediately restarted. – justinpage – 2015-05-28T19:49:28.077
@KLVTZ I hope by everything you mean the Menubar! :o – cregox – 2015-05-28T20:21:31.423
@Cawas my bad, yep menu bar and everything within it restarted! Not the entire computer >> – justinpage – 2015-05-29T18:12:07.603
1This doesn't work in Mac OS Sierra. See answer by tomng below. – guidod – 2017-03-16T13:32:31.020
1killall Spotlight worked for me on macOS Sierra! – rinogo – 2018-04-30T20:44:41.383
1pkill Spotlight did the trick for me. Didn't need the other 2. – trinth – 2019-09-06T20:00:31.323
2I seem to recall the clock stopped changing for me as well.. though can't be certain.. it was 3 months ago after all hehe – Damon – 2011-04-12T02:37:09.197
1I had the same problem, and ended up restarting.. The entire notification area was frozen, so the answer may have been to restart/kill that process. – mpe – 2011-05-18T08:17:48.503
1I tried this solution and it worked (I did it from the Activity Monitor, but that's close enough) – iwein – 2011-07-19T11:17:51.520
2@Damon - I can confirm that the clock stopped changing for me. – lindon fox – 2011-08-17T06:33:55.147
Did not work for me. Spotlight icon only is still unresponsive. – Jonny – 2014-06-06T04:04:19.980
43
Just ran into Spotlight itself crashing. The answer for that problem is just going to the Terminal and typing:
killall Spotlight
Fixed the Spotlight freeze problem!
tomng
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 531
1This worked for me. killall systemui didn't work – Goldname – 2016-10-30T01:36:19.397
1Also worked for me while the approved answer didn't. My symptom was not being able to type into spotlight (launched fine, just did nothing when launched) – Ryan – 2016-12-23T07:05:11.890
1Worked for me on macOS Sierra. I believe the accepted answer is from a time when Spotlight was in the menu bar. – Nick – 2017-01-13T14:35:59.647
Spotlight would open but not accept any input, this fixed it for me on macOS Sierra. – Drew Goodwin – 2017-02-01T19:09:25.040
8
I'm not sure why this wasn't mentioned on here, but I had a locked up Spotlight menu/search box was able to solve the problem by killing the Spotlight process using the Activity monitor. None of the other actions mentioned in other answers worked.
This was on OS X El Capitan.
Damian Manda
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 141
1alternatively ps -e | grep "Spotlight" then kill {process id for spotlight} – Aristides – 2016-05-09T00:06:29.317
5killall Spotlight did the the trick for me (on OS X El Capitan). – Josh Foskett – 2016-05-15T16:33:25.790
look at the dates. El Captain wasn't even in the planning board back then. – cregox – 2017-03-16T18:04:08.387
8
It'll probably show up in /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app. Select All Processes in the toolbar to see processes of all users.
The screenshot is from when I was searching something. I guess you'd kill mds by pressing Cmd-Opt-Q after selecting it to terminate Spotlight, but I'm not sure -- probably best if you checked CPU usage and/or if the name of a process is written in red, indicating it froze.
Daniel Beck
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 98 421
odd.. as soon as I force-quite it, it appears back there and my spotlight menu is still up working away at nothing. – Damon – 2011-01-10T22:22:59.500
1@Damon It's a server intended to run all the time, and gets restarted once you stop it. If it were responsible for the issue, killing it would fix it. Have you tried looking for another task, that maybe uses much CPU, or maybe tried to simply restart Finder? – Daniel Beck – 2011-01-10T22:24:51.543
restarting finder was the first thing i did.. nothing else really doing much other than Window Server.. looks like i'm just going to have to reboot – Damon – 2011-01-10T22:54:28.930
8
The first post is correct that mds is the process for spotlight. You can kill it in activity monitor or:
sudo killall mds
from the terminal. The process will restart automatically as it is managed as a launchd item that is set to always be running.
You might look at
man mdutil
as well. This is a utility at the command line for managing mds settings on volumes.
Wilersh
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 129
It goes away and the process returns, but the spotlight icon is gone, and the keyboard shortcut doesn't work. – Jens Timmerman – 2015-01-16T08:49:23.133
Killing mds does not work for me either. – Jonny – 2014-06-06T04:05:54.930
3
For the record, just had this issue but I couldn't get terminal or activity monitor to work. The solution? Use Apple+Option+esc to bring up the Force Quit Applications dialog, select the trouble app, then click the "force quit" button.
Cheers!
longda
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 221
1Apple + Option + Esc is also a great advice... I hope I recall that the next time spotlight seem to freeze. Which trouble app did you happen to kill in your case? – cregox – 2013-11-13T19:58:37.270
2
In Activity Monitor I stopped "Quick Look UI Helper." This might be a bit less brute force than some of the other suggestions, assuming that's what is hanging up in your case, too.
SoCalBeachRunner
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 21
2
06-19-14 I had a Spotlight-created, seemingly frozen dialog box describing an Evernote note with 0KB. I logged off, then logged back in. The dialog box disappeared. Did not need to reboot. Spotlight itself continued to function normally even though the previous "hit" was still stuck on the Desktop screen.
Adrian Brancato
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 21
2
In Yosemite: kill mds_stores and mds. They'll restart automatically and then Spotlight works again. At least, that's my experience.
zakmck
Posted 2011-01-10T21:53:55.137
Reputation: 121
2This also restored my ability to use Spotlight to start applications on 10.9, and search in Mail works again, too. Thanks! – Bombe – 2016-02-26T06:20:39.423
Damon, why you accepted an answer that didn't work for you? I for one just got the exact same issue for the first time, tried the exact same measures, including from your comments below, and then tried every suggestion in the answers but still got nothing. It's still frozen there. Did you ever solve this without a reboot? :P – cregox – 2011-04-12T01:16:19.443
so you tried all that terminal junk and no dice? – Damon – 2011-04-12T01:42:17.347
the terminal junk is the same as the activity monitor junk, just like Wilersh said himself. and yep, no dices there. Spotlight is now behaving weird and I do think it triggered the issue but now I know it is actually the task/notification bar that's locked. My clock has stopped and the colorful hourglass is all over every regular mac icon there. – cregox – 2011-04-12T01:46:22.503