On my Catalina 10.15 Spotlight stopped working. I could no longer search for local Apps or Files. Was doing usual fixes, chicking file/folders, starting/stopping mds with launchctl and mdutil.
Then i got a hunch. I turned on WireShark and ran 'mdutil -ai on'. Sure enough, mds reaches out to gateway.icloud.apple.com! And mds reports an index error and stops.
I don't use icloud. I don't want my system pinging iCloud (and spying on me). A saw a tip from a blogger, a lazy/poor man's firewall is to put that hostnsme in your /etc/hosts file and give it the IP number 127.0.0.1
When I ran mdutul again, boom! No more index error, it works again, and I can be sure my system is not using iCloud.
Think I'll try this techniqe more. Watch for other unwanted calls to internet and reroute them.
Then i got a hunch. I turned on WireShark and ran 'mdutil -ai on'. Sure enough, mds reaches out to gateway.icloud.apple.com! And mds reports an index error and stops.
I don't use icloud. I don't want my system pinging iCloud (and spying on me). A saw a tip from a blogger, a lazy/poor man's firewall is to put that hostnsme in your /etc/hosts file and give it the IP number 127.0.0.1
When I ran mdutul again, boom! No more index error, it works again, and I can be sure my system is not using iCloud.
Think I'll try this techniqe more. Watch for other unwanted calls to internet and reroute them.