I'm working with a fresh install of Lion - including wiping the hard drive - but Spotlight refuses to be enabled. I've tried:

Unloading and loading the MDS service

The following commands:

sudo mdutil -a -i on
sudo mdutil -i on /
sudo mdutil -E /

Looking for hidden "no index" files (none found)
Repairing disk perms
Checking logs for any hints as to what might be preventing Spotlight from enabling

Nothing seems to allow me to enable Spotlight on the root drive. I am continually returned:

/:   
     Indexing and searching disabled

Does anyone know what would prevent Spotlight from enabling or how to further diagnose the issue?

Matt Schultz

Posted 2012-05-03T12:51:27.443

Reputation: 41

Install Alfred and see if that kickstarts it somehow. You could also try Repair Permissions in Disk Utility. – None – 2012-05-03T15:29:57.727

Randolph, Alfred relies on Spotlight, so no go there. And tried disk perms too. – Matt Schultz – 2012-05-03T17:45:35.547

Answers

Solved!

The machine had its NVRAM forced to safe mode. Zapping PRAM (CMD+OPR+P+R on boot) cleared this, and it now works.

Incidentally, Lion did nothing to overtly indicate that it was booting into Safe Mode, which would've really helped in identifying and fixing the issue.

Matt Schultz

Posted 2012-05-03T12:51:27.443

Reputation: 41

Do you maybe have a /.metadata_never_index file at the root of the volume? A similar question at Ask Different: Spotlight reports "Indexing and searching disabled" in Lion.

Lri

Posted 2012-05-03T12:51:27.443

Reputation: 34 501

I checked for all hidden files; none existed. =\ – Matt Schultz – 2012-05-03T14:08:43.820

Spotlight refuses to be enabled on Lion

Answers

Solved!