Index not working

Question

I'm working on a document. There's an index there, but for some reason when I change things in it it doesn't update the rendered outcome and I can't correct it.

I tried erasing the .ind file, but then it just render the document without an index at all (instead of re-creating the index as I would have expected).

What am I doing wrong?

Specifics:

there's a defs file that has:

\usepackage{makeidx}
\makeindex

the grand .tex file has:

\input{defs}
.
.
.
\printindex

But: when I change, for example \index{Installing} to \index{installing} the index keeps having "Installing" and not "installing".

When I erase the .ind file and re-render it (even after ten times of trying) the document simply does not include an index at all and stops before it.

There is no new .ind file being generated.

Answer 1

Just to avoid confusion, the way to produce a generic index should be

1. include \usepackage{makeidx}
2. Put a \makeindex command in the preamble
3. Put a \printindex where the index should appear
4. Run LaTeX which generates an "fname".idx file
5. Run makeindex "fname".idx to generate the "fname".ind
6. Run LaTeX again to include the .ind file and generate the index in the document

From your question, it is not clear if all of these parts are included in your process.

Answer 2

No really an answer, but here is a working MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{makeidx}
\makeindex
\begin{document}
text\index{test}

\printindex
\end{document}

and it works just fine on my system. Does it work on yours?