Symptom:

Searches may hang when typing slowly into the Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger search prompt.

Steps to Reproduce:

Select an Acronis Files Connect (formerly ExtremeZ-IP) mounted volume on a Mac OS 10.4 client and type any word into the search prompt with a second pause between each letter.

Cause:

This problem is a direct result another Tiger bug returning large numbers of results. See Knowledge Base article: Acronis Files Connect file searches cause Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to hang when returning a large number of results

Mac OS 10.4 includes a "search as you type" function that will start a search on whatever is in the search prompt if you pause typing for more than 1/2 second or so. This produces a quick set of results when searching a local hard drive using Spotlight but causes problems searching servers over a network. When entering a search request on the client, if a user intends to type "Tiger" but pauses briefly after typing "T", a search for "T" will be initiated automatically, likely returning 100's or 1000's of results very quickly and hanging the client Mac's Finder for several minutes.

Workaround:

The only real work-around for this is to type fast enough to not trigger the unintended search or to cut and paste your search request into the search prompt.

It is also possible to initiate a search request without "search as you type" from the Search function in the Finder menu.

Fix:

Preliminary information points to the bug that causes Finder hangs when returning large numbers of results in Mac OS X 10.4 being corrected in the upcoming 10.4.3 update. The correction of this bug should correct this problem.