I'm using PM 5.5.3 with Tiger (10.4.11) on a MacBook Pro (2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 2 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM). Although previously it worked fine, for the last half year or so I have not been able to make the PM search function work. I have tried discarding PM and re-installing a new copy. I've tried the "update search index" and "compact search index." (I've also compacted the message database countless times.) Under Preferences I have checked "automatically index messages in background" and "enable external indexing by Spotlight and Foxtrot Personal Search. I have plenty of room on my hard drive (25 GB free). I've repaired permissions many times.
The messages are in the database and readable. But most of them do not show up in a search. I run a search for all messages in a folder, for example, that have the word "testimony" in the subject line, and the search function tells me there are none. But a message with the word "testimony" in the subject line from last February is there in the folder. Though many messages from the past several years are in some of the folder, even a search that would bring up virtually all messages in the folder (i.e., search for "the" in the body) will not show any messages from previous years. My message database is currently 226 MB. Over the past half year I've tried all sorts of experiments but cannot seem to solve the problem or figure out what's wrong. I'd appreciate any help in diagnosing and fixing this problem. Thanks for your help. Ken
