Spotlight indexing not working

[gmazzucchelli]

Expected

Expecting to use spotlight to search notes created with Simplenote

Observed

In Spotlight results, notes shows as "Simplenote.storedata", clicking on them doesn't open the corresponding note

Reproduced

1. CMD + spacebar
2. Enter a note name, or a word contained in any note
3. "Simplenote.storedata" is showed

Make	Model	macOS Version	App Version
SYSTEM_MAKE	SYSTEM_MODEL	macOS 15.1	2.21

[dangermattic]

Thanks for reporting! 👍

[charliescheer]

Thanks for reporting @gmazzucchelli. I took a look at this and I was seeing the same thing. When I dug into it, I found that I had spotlight indexing disabled. this is not on by default. Can you check and see if spotlight is enabled in Simplenote Mac?

You can do that by going to Settings and then checking the box for Index Notes in Spotlight. Once active, quit SN and reopen it (should force it to re index) Then give it a minute to complete that process.

Once you have done that try searching for your notes in spotlight again. After I did the same my notes appeared in spotlight

[gmazzucchelli]

Double-checked under app settings, turner spotlight indexing off and on, re-started the app, but no solution.

It is look like spotlight can find the data inside Simplenote, but the notes appears in the search as "simplenote.storedata", all with the same name, no thumbnail icons, and once clicking on it, it said that the extension "storedata" is not associated with any app.

In case, let me know where should I look for app logs, or crash reports, to investigate the issue.

[charliescheer]

Thanks for trying that. I went back over the code for indexing notes on Mac OS and there shouldn't be anything restricting your notes being indexed by spotlight if the setting is enabled. I did notice that my previous instructions may not have been correct. Restarting the app after activating the indexing in spotlight may have interrupted the process of indexing instead of ensuring it, especially if you have a lot of notes as the indexing may take some time.

Can you please try toggling off the "Index Notes In Spotlight" setting again, but this time leave the app open and give it some time to index. I have also noticed in the past that sometimes there is a bit of time in between when Simplenote requests to add to the spotlight index and when things appear in it. So please be patient. Hopefully that will sort it out for you

[gmazzucchelli]

Thanks for this feedback. Giving this method a shot.
If it may be related to macOS spotlight indexing, and not SN app code, wondering if there is any command to try to force the re-indexing process.

[gmazzucchelli]

Tried the previous suggestion multiple times, but no solution.
Wondering if I can attach any report, to help investigate this issue further.

[charliescheer]

Hmmm. That is strange. There isn't really much to report, the way that Simplenote Mac indexes your notes into spotlight is just running through the notes one at a time and giving the title and note content to spotlight. If fetching your notes was failing there would be much bigger problems. I did a quick search and it looks like going to MacOS 15, there are other folks who are seeing spotlight issues. Check out this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1gjhiha/spotlight_not_looking_for_apps/?rdt=43640 there might be some troubleshooting there that could help