Normally, the x.1 update fixes many of the bugs from the first release. But in Tahoe, a crop of fresh bugs have been included. Here are some of them, and how they have arisen.
Spotlight
In macOS Mojave, Apple changed the way that Spotlight indexes the contents of plain text files. That introduced a bug that prevents indexing of any of the contents of files starting with certain characters. For many Macs, that bug won’t ever be fixed.
For the last 10 years, macOS has relied on Uniform Type Identifiers to recognise different types of files, for opening in apps, QuickLook, Spotlight and in other features.
From Ventura (if not earlier) to Tahoe, Spotlight appears unable to index text files that start with two specific letters. Although those are exceedingly rare, this could still catch you out.
Notes on how search depends on index structure, effects of language on different types of search term, and the benefits and limitations of search methods.
Running the basic test on a folder in your Home folder, extending that to documents that use a custom mdimporter, to other volumes and locations, and other search terms.
This can now test and search any regular volume that’s connected to your Mac and mounted in /Volumes, using either NSMetadataQuery in the API, or mdfind instead.
New app tests Spotlight indexing and search of local files across 15 test files and two search methods. This should provide valuable clues for diagnosis.
How to find images containing objects recognised by Visual Look Up, and text by Live Text, using Spotlight, mdfind and in an app.
macOS gained Live Text and Visual Look Up when Apple declared its intent to check our images. Both are used in Spotlight’s indexes, but their function seems unreliable and highly variable.
The Eclectic Light Company 