Had to disable Spotlight indexing to prevent mds_stores taking over 100% CPU. Must be a better solution?

[AVR2]

I have three Macs of various vintages running 10.15.7, all with the latest updates.

My 2019 MBP 16" is the only one that's suffering from mds_stores going nuts and using over 100% CPU.

As a temporary solution I've added all volumes to the Privacy tab, so Spotlight is basically useless, but it seems the only way to stop mds_stores slowing the machine right down and spinning the fans up to maximum.

There has to be a better way that lets me keep Spotlight functionality while not being held hostage to mds_stores, surely?

 

[OakdaleFTL]

Hm. Gonna experiment... I have a late-2012 mini running El Capitan (10.11.6).

1. Add Time Machine drive to Spotlight's exclude list.

 

[OakdaleFTL]

Hm. Gonna experiment... I have a late-2012 mini running El Capitan (10.11.6).

1. Add Time Machine drive to Spotlight's exclude list.

Hmm. Three and a half hours -- no problems...until it crashed! The reboot took longer than usual; when the log-in screen appeared, the mouse pointer didn't. I tried a wired USB mouse: Nada. So I shut 'er down with the power button.
It came up more quickly, and the pointer appeared when and where it should.
Most of what I'd been running returned. (I'd quit Garage Band '11 just before the crash!)
Well, I've got some more testing to do...

But -without a doubt- excluding the Time Machine backup disk from Spotlight cures a multitude of ills!

And it might be the answer...

 

[OakdaleFTL]

Well, maybe not...

storeuid was not responding... (App store has wanted to update a few things that I don't want or need.) I saw nothing else amiss.
Curious!

 

[OakdaleFTL]

And so on, down the rabbit hole!

Quit Seagate's Toolkit... Seems to have done the trick. (Also using Time Machine Scheduler, latest version.)

 

[OakdaleFTL]

Further down the Rabbit Hole I went...to no avail.

But lookie here:

Edit:
!!!!!!,!: My sincere appologies, McSolitaire... You are free to go.
(The judge-and-jury poster was wrong...)

 

[OakdaleFTL]

Or so I thought... After more than 10 hours of zippy performance, I was satisfied.
This morning -within 15 minutes- of use CPU usage spiked high enough to interfere with everything! Activity Monitor showed an instance of a browser renderer to be at fault. Killed it there...
And the page's view blanked; everything went back to normal. Imagine a simple web page causing such (inadvertent or not) malicious nuisance? Who knew.