Having upgraded to Big Sur last week, I'd noticed that Spotlight still hadn't completed disk indexing after ~7 days.
I was digging in further using Terminal: -
sudo mdutil -E /
/:
Error: Index is already changing state. Please try again in a moment.
Error: Index is already changing state. Please try again in a moment.
sudo mdutil -i on /
Password:
/:
Indexing enabled.
sudo mdutil -i off /
/:
Error: Index is already changing state. Please try again in a moment.
sudo mdutil -s /
/:
Error: unexpected indexing state. kMDConfigSearchLevelTransitioning
None of this looked particularly good ....
Thankfully, a colleague showed me how to turn indexing off: -
sudo mdutil -a -i off
/:
2020-11-23 11:12:08.988 mdutil[75847:1674629] mdutil disabling Spotlight: / -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
Indexing disabled.
/System/Volumes/Data:
2020-11-23 11:12:09.061 mdutil[75847:1674629] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /System/Volumes/Data -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
Indexing disabled.
/Volumes/Backups of Dave’s MacBook Pro:
2020-11-23 11:12:10.963 mdutil[75847:1674629] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /Volumes/Backups of Dave’s MacBook Pro -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
Indexing enabled.
and on again: -
sudo mdutil -a -i on
/:
Indexing enabled.
/System/Volumes/Data:
Indexing enabled.
/Volumes/Backups of Dave’s MacBook Pro:
Indexing enabled.
and, now, things are looking better ....
sudo mdutil -s /
Password:
/:
Indexing enabled.
Spotlight is still eating battery : -
but .... we'll see ....