Unable to search with Finder in HDD with Time Machine

[AnaNic]

Hello,

I have an 500 Gb external HD on which I have a TimeMachine of an older MacBook Pro. When I used to connect it to my Air or newer MacBook Pro, I would go into the Finder and when I performed a search, I could select a particular backup (let's say ANA18may2018)and search in it. I would have the files shown in the Finder window all the files that matched the search criteria.
I run Mojave on my newer MacBook and Sierra on Air. (I am about to upgrade, too).

I realised that on the newer MacBook Pro, although the TM external HD was there, there was no search performed on it. I could enter the backups and look for a file manually, open anything on the extrnal HD, copy it to my MAC but could not search.
I connect it to my Air, and it still performed searches. So, I used it on the Air.

Today I tried it on my Air, too. It stopped searching it... I tried, and tried. Disconnected it, connected it, restarted it, the Air etc. etc. Nothing.
Googled.. went to Spotlight, it was not in the Privacy (so that it is not indexed). I tried adding it and then deleting it, nothing,

I am not a computer person, i.e. I have no knowledge, but I tried this

If that fails to index, enter the following command in Terminal:
sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/your drive name"​

and it asked for my password, I entered it and then it said indexing....

Ok, I am going in Spotlight (although I did not want to use it) and it does not search. I am going in the FiNDER window and pressing the search button, it still does not work...... it does not search it all....

If I navigate to it, it works, it sees the files, folder etc, but it does not perform any searches, it does not work.....
I cannot manually find what I am looking for...it would take me ages.. not to mention that I hate this situation....

I tried with two other external HD, and they all work. On one, I have another TM for the Air, and I can perform searches through Finder.

Any ideas???

I hope my message is clear enough thanks a lot!

 

[IWT]

Hello and welcome.

One possibility is the Time Machine (TM) backup from your old MacBook was made on a Mac with the older filing system called HFS+ whereas your newer Macs are using Apple File System aka APFS.

Although the TM backup may still be valid as a backup, - even that may be in doubt - the different filing systems, HFS versus APFS may mean that the search function cannot operate.

To me, that’s the likeliest explanation.

Ian

 

[AnaNic]

Hi.

I can use it, i.e. I can see all the files etc. Can I check the file types?

I can see all the folders and subfolders, and as I said, as early as one month ago, i.e. on the 28th of April, I could do a search on the HDD TM on my Air. I have not upgraded to Mojave yet. I thought that maybe I cannot do the search on the Mojave on my newer MacBook Pro because of a system/incompatibility.... but it worked on Sierra ... not it stopped working there too.

I mean what you say makes sense, only that I cannot understand why it worked on the Air and now it stopped

If anybody else has a different solution....

Hello and welcome.

One possibility is the Time Machine (TM) backup from your old MacBook was made on a Mac with the older filing system called HFS+ whereas your newer Macs are using Apple File System aka APFS.

Although the TM backup may still be valid as a backup, - even that may be in doubt - the different filing systems, HFS versus APFS may mean that the search function cannot operate.

To me, that’s the likeliest explanation.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

If I dare say so, I don't believe one should be using the Finder, ie Stoplight, to do any Findersearching in any Time Machine Backup.

And is that drive or volume perhaps in the Spotlight Pref pane Privacy section to be ignored???

As an alternative, Maybe try using Find Any File (FAF) or EasyFind utilities.
Thomas Tempelmann - Find Any File
and
DEVONtechnologies | Needful Things


- Patrick
======

 

[MacInWin]

Patrick, your somewhat tired reference to "stoplight" used to be just for Spotlight. Have you now expanded to Finder as well? That seems harsh.

As for Finder and TM backups, I agree with you it should not be used the way the OP described. The "files" in TM backups are not really files, and if one uses Finder to muck with them at all, there is an excellent chance of destroying the entire backup integrity and having to start all over, losing permanently all that history.

 

[pm-r]

Patrick, your somewhat tired reference to "stoplight" used to be just for Spotlight. Have you now expanded to Finder as well? That seems harsh.

My understanding was that the Finder and Spotlight searches were basically the same thing, at least with recent OS X versions, other than Spotlight can provide some additional options or "features" and preferences. Or maybe Spotlight actually does ALL the searching now???



- Patrick
======

 

[MacInWin]

That might be, Patrick, but the two seem to operate differently. A Spotlight search returns the results from the database very quickly, whereas a search in Finder seems to populate more slowly as Finder does the search. To me, it looks like two different processes, but I really don't know.