How to crash Spotlight!

placeboplacebo
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Just enter anything with a '<' or'>' in it and it hangs for the rest of your login session, and hangs when you enter ANYTHING after you Force Quit its subprocess! My biggest hope for Spotlight, being able to search the HTML and PHP code that I write, crashes Spotlight (and hangs the dock for extra fun)! Great!
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Doesn't hang my system.
  • Reply 2 of 26
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by lundy

    Doesn't hang my system.



    type in '<?php' and let it search for a sec.
  • Reply 3 of 26
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Interesting... mds is going crazy right now.



    I usually do search my PHP code though, but by filename or function.
  • Reply 4 of 26
    eekles77eekles77 Posts: 58member
    Mine doesn't crash at all...
  • Reply 5 of 26
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    I'm using 10.4.1 and searching for the string "<?php" certainly crashes spotlight for me. I have many many php files with <?php or <? in them.
  • Reply 6 of 26
    chrisgchrisg Posts: 239member
    < doesn't do anything or <html> or <img src



    However typing <? completely screws up mds end up having to kill it. Must have something to do with the ability to type raw expressions into the spotlight field.
  • Reply 7 of 26
    low-filow-fi Posts: 357member
    Perhaps the hook for greater than/less than isn't working just yet, and it crashes? I agree with the above assessemnt of the issue
  • Reply 8 of 26
    theapplegeniustheapplegenius Posts: 584member
    mine hangs, but doesn't crash...
  • Reply 9 of 26
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    By Crash I mean that Spotlight will no longer accept subsequent searches. You can enter something in and it will never return results. Also, the mds process starts using all your CPU so your system may become less responsive.



    A restart restores Spotlight functionality.



    So yes, maybe not a crash in the true sense of the word. But Spotlight basically jams up until you restart.
  • Reply 10 of 26
    namo4184namo4184 Posts: 25member
    No problems here
  • Reply 11 of 26
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    No problems with <?php it found 248 items. If you want to crash spotlight do a search and then with thousands of images, documents etc. click option-i. That will crash most - although it may have been fixed in 10.4.1.



    Edit: I just clicked it in 10.4.1 with over 2500 music files and it's hanging!



    Edit Edit: IT DID IT!!!!



    It hangs for a while but if you leave it it will do it eventually - obviously there's no point in getting the info for this many items!



    - it does crash finder though
  • Reply 12 of 26
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I tried putting it in quotes to nullify the booleans, but that doesn't work.



    Goddamn it, I wish Apple had scratched the Finder search and put in a Spotlight with more than a text field.
  • Reply 13 of 26
    trobertstroberts Posts: 702member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    type in '<?php' and let it search for a sec.



    Mine does NOT crash! It even opened an email that I selected which contained '<?php' without any problems.
  • Reply 14 of 26
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by troberts

    Mine does NOT crash! It even opened an email that I selected which contained '<?php' without any problems.



    Spotlight is a core of the OS and is therefore difficult to crash - in my experience. Finder on the other hand will crash!
  • Reply 15 of 26
    squozensquozen Posts: 66member
    178 results, no crash. 10.4.1.
  • Reply 16 of 26
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Squozen

    178 results, no crash. 10.4.1.



    same - 420 results 0 crashes or hangs in 10.4.1
  • Reply 17 of 26
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    I managed to completely freeze spotlight last night...



    * Searched for a 350mb divx clip.

    * Clicked on the info button to find out it's path (damn that's annoying)

    * Spotlight attempts to load the video preview while I copy and delete the original.

    * SNAFU



    Damn!

    Next task? Figure out how to kill spotlight.
  • Reply 18 of 26
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    same - 420 results 0 crashes or hangs in 10.4.1



    Try 9,562 songs - that'll crash it!
  • Reply 19 of 26
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I can search "kind:image", return close to 10,000 results, and not crash.



    I heard that the .php crash has to do with it being set to open in DW and not a default text app.
  • Reply 20 of 26
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    I can search "kind:image", return close to 10,000 results, and not crash.



    I heard that the .php crash has to do with it being set to open in DW and not a default text app.



    you have to do it in finder and then press option-i
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