Lost searches in Mail and Address book

[Donethat]

It is no longer possible to search my address book on my iMac. When you enter a search in the search box and hit return it will just jump to the next entry in the address book. Added to this occasionally when entering a search each key press is doubled. So a search for david would result in 'ddaavviidd'. That particular fault is normally cleared by restarting the computer.

I have had the search problem with Address book for a while. The reason I am more even more concerned is now I can't search 'Entire Message' in Mail, though the other search functions seem to be fine.

Spotlight is working correctly.

I have tried resetting Parameter RAM but this isn't possible either via the Alt+CMD+P+R method. I know how to do this correctly as the method works fine on clients machines, just neither of my computers. It should be noted that they have been cloned off each other.

I don't know whether these issues are related or not but I would really love to resolve them.

Donethat

[chscag]

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

Resetting the PRAM - NVRAM should work provided you're doing it correctly. This from the Apple KB:

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

Shut down the computer.

Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.

Turn on the computer.

Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.

Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

Release the keys.


I don't know whether correctly resetting the PRAM will cure your search problem with address book but it may help to speed things up somewhat. It's possible your address book is corrupt and causing the search errors to occur.

[Donethat]

Thanks for your reply.

I had thought that too about resetting the PRAM.

Unfortunately that is another problem, I can't on this machine. No problem on other macs, just this one. Is there another way to reset the PRAM?

Crispin