System Preferences Search is broken

[canhaz]

Nothing I type results in a match.

On the other hand Spotlight does list specific items in System preferences.

Basically out of ideas at this point, short of a reinstall. OTOH that seems rather drastic. Anyone else had to deal with this before?

 

[Taz Mangus]

Try creating a new admin user account, login to the new admin account and try the System Preferences search from the new admin user account.

 

[Sedulous]

Nothing I type results in a match.

View attachment 934065

On the other hand Spotlight does list specific items in System preferences.

View attachment 934064

Basically out of ideas at this point, short of a reinstall. OTOH that seems rather drastic. Anyone else had to deal with this before?

Sorta feels like a “these aren’t the droids you are looking for” situation. But seriously, the advice to check behavior with a new account is good.

 

[canhaz]

Try creating a new admin user account, login to the new admin account and try the System Preferences search from the new admin user account.

Great idea. Kind of embarrassed I didn't try that first come to think of it

Anyways, it works fine in the blank test user account as you can see below:

Question is, where to from here?

 

[Sedulous]

There is a smart way and then there is the way I would move forward. I’d just migrate to a new account.

But if anyone knows where sys prefs keeps “search“ database, maybe that relevant file could be swapped out. I kinda doubt that this could be caused by a corrupted preference file (eg: /users/library/preferences/com.apple.systempreferences)

 

[Taz Mangus]

Great idea. Kind of embarrassed I didn't try that first come to think of it

Anyways, it works fine in the blank test user account as you can see below:

View attachment 934207

Question is, where to from here?

Try stripping back everything that you are running from your user account (login Items, launch Agents, etc).