#Yep, that file exists and is zero-length

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

woeful compass
#

my understanding, but I can't back this up, is that

mdutil -i off /Volumes/CIRCUITPY

is slightly different from both the Privacy tab and the never index file so there's a chance that one might succeed, if you haven't tried it yet

that's my last trick for getting Spotlight to stop

actually - one more though is is extra hacky

Time Machine volumes should have a .com.apple.timemachine.supported file, which also stops indexing. I don't think Time Machine will automatically start backing up to volumes with that file though - that would be so hilariously awful that I have to try it right now 🙂

grizzled wharf
#

Good call. But doing mdutil -s shows:

% mdutil -s /Volumes/CIRCUITPY
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/CIRCUITPY:
    Indexing and searching disabled.

so I think .metadata_never_index is doing its job

woeful compass
#

argh!

grizzled wharf
#

yeah

#

especially frustrating because the 5-second restart thing isn't happening now

#

Maybe I should just file an issue on this with a video showing what I'm seeing

#

Not sure if relevant, but I just unplugged for 15 mins and then replugged the device. It did the restart thing after ~9 seconds.
mdutil -s reports something slightly different:

% mdutil -s /Volumes/CIRCUITPY
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/CIRCUITPY:
    Indexing disabled.

So "Indexing disabled" instead of "Indexing and searching disabled"

woeful compass
#

fascinating

I love Apple products but they're way too obtuse at times

#

I wonder if on search the system causing updates on last access timestamps? Which FAT32 doesn't have but possibly the extra metadata Apple tries to save does. And you're not actually searching so that's weird anyway

100% spitballing there

#

mdutil -d should tell it to stop searching on the drive, not sure how well that persists. Doesn't appear to be a way to label the drive itself to never be searched.

grizzled wharf
#

yeah, mdutil -d doesn't seem to do anything. The restarts still happen. And it doesn't appear to persist (or rather, I suspect the persistence mechanism is that .metadata_never_index file.

Oh and now it's in the "not going to recognize any external USB MSC drives" mode. Not CIRCUITPY, not USB thumbdrives.
Sigh. What has changed, MacOS? Why act like this?

woeful compass
#

15.x was working too well for once...

#

and why that change on a patch release??

grizzled wharf
#

oh this was happening for me before 15.6.1. I was hoping this "security" release would actually fix it ahha

#

There is some correlation with Time Machine backups (which also does a bunch of disk mounting). So I bet this is just yet-another bug due to the rewrites they've been doing to the filesystem drivers/Finder these last few years

woeful compass
#

ah got it

#

oh -- have you tried excluding CIRCUITPY from time machine backups?

#

I have that set on my mac

grizzled wharf
#

yep

woeful compass
#

primary mac anyway, which usually behaves well

#

dang

grizzled wharf
#

yeah. when it gets into this "cannot mount any USB media including CIRCUITPY" mode, even diskutil list just hangs

woeful compass
#

wow...

#

time to email Tim Apple! 😉

grizzled wharf
#

until you take out the offending USB drive

grizzled wharf
#

anyway, thanks for this thread. I may update it from time to time with observations. you are under no obligation to comment 🙂

woeful compass
#

I'm happy to at least comiserate even if I'm out of ideas 🙂

woeful compass
#

Upgraded to 15.6.1 last night and now I'm seeing CIRCUITPY randomly not mount too :/

grizzled wharf
#

Oh no this thread memetically infected your Mac!