mddiagnose
MDDIAGNOSE(8) System Manager's Manual MDDIAGNOSE(8)
NAME
mddiagnose – gather information to aid in diagnosing Spotlight issues
SYNOPSIS
mddiagnose -h
mddiagnose [-f path] [-e path] [-p path] [-n]
DESCRIPTION
The mddiagnose tool gathers system and Spotlight information in order to
assist Apple when investigating issues related to Spotlight. A great deal
of information is harvested, spanning system state, system and Spotlight
details.
What mddiagnose Collects:
• A spindump of the system
• Several seconds of top output
• Individual samples of mds and mdworker
• Paths for all files used by Spotlight to contain its database on
every volume
• All system logs
• All spin and crash reports for the following processes:
mds
mdworker
• Recent spin and crash reports for the following processes, for
all local users:
mds
mdworker
• The query text and result quality statistics for recent Spotlight
searches. The actual results of the searches are not gathered
• General information about disks and mounted network shares
• The path of the last file indexed by each mdworker process on
behalf of Spotlight. The path of the last file which resulted in
a crash of an mdworker process. In each case, only the path is
gathered, not the contents of the file
• Spotlight configuration for each volume currently mounted on your
system. This includes the path and size of all files used
internally by Spotlight as well as a listing of paths that are
user excluded from indexing
• Comprehensive information about internal state of Spotlight
What mddiagnose Doesn't Collect:
• No user data is harvested from any volume
• No paths or files found by any search are returned
• No database storage or user files are returned
• No authentication credentials are harvested from the system
OPTIONS
-h Print full usage.
-m Gather a subset of the normal report.
-f path Write the diagnostic to the specified path.
-p path Gather Spotlight permissions and filter information. Run as owner
of that file.
EXIT STATUS
mddiagnose exits with status 0 if there were no internal errors encountered
during the diagnostic, or >0 when an error unrelated to external state
occurs or unusable input is provided by the user.
Mac OS X 15 March 2011 Mac OS X