The bug mentioned in this question continues: Spotlight search on iOS 9 returns no results.
I've tried
- Sending myself an e-mail (yes really; this occasionally works for a few minutes)
- Toggling off all entries in the settings for Spotlight (takes forever)
- Restarting
- Rebooting
- Toggling contacts on and off (suggested in several places, at least of iOS 8)
- Re-enablining only Contacts in Spotlight search settings (said to work for iOS8)
- All of the above in every possible pairwise combination
None of these work for more than a few minutes. Most do not work at all.
Basically, for practical use, especially "in the field", this effectively bricks my iPhone.
Has anyone had reliable success with iOS 9 fixing this issue?
Best Answer
Both of these, the only specific attempts you've made to solve your issue (and the only two that seem to be reported as effective) both involve accounts.
My best guess for why your issue is occurring (based on this connection) is that something with your email accounts is screwed up, giving Spotlight a format of information it can't handle, effectively crashing it. The idea that your accounts are causing it is one uncommon thing that isn't changed by a factory reset, given that you probably re-signed-in to at least one of your accounts immediately after a reset.
How should you stop this issue from occurring?
Once you delete all email/account related data from your iPhone, I suspect this issue will cease to occur to you, and Spotlight should start working again.
Other tips from other forums:
Make sure you're not hiding contacts in the Contacts app.
Shut down everything from appearing in Spotlight then only enable Contacts.
Reset your network settings in Settings->General->Reset
The only official suggestion from Apple
Make sure you're in a country that supports Spotlight Search, that your language is set to a language spoken in one of those countries, and that your device region is set to one of those countries.