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