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Repair failed content index in Exchange
You have a database showing as failed content index in Exchange Server. It can be one or more databases. In this article, you will learn how to repair failed content index in Exchange Server. Good to know is that when you repair a failed content index in Exchange Server, it can cause high CPU utilization on the Exchange Server. It’s important to enable the search indexing after working hours or at an off-peak time as it can impact performance.
Table of contents
Status of the content index
Let’s get the status of the content indexing. Run Exchange Management Shell as administrator. Run the following command.
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[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | Sort Name | Select Name, Status, ContentIndexState Name Status ContentIndexState ---- ------ ----------------- DB10-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB10-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB11-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB11-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB12-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB12-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB13-2016\EX01 Mounted Failed DB13-2016\EX02 Healthy Failed |
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[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | Sort Name | Select Name, Status, ContentIndexState Name Status ContentIndexState ---- ------ ----------------- DB10-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB10-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB11-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB11-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB12-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB12-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB13-2016\EX01 Mounted Failed DB13-2016\EX02 Healthy FailedAndSuspended |
You will see one of the following outputs. The database DB13-2016 ContentIndexState is showing Failed or FailedAndSuspended. Let’s rebuild the index.
Stop the services
Stop the services first by running the two commands.
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[PS] C:\>Stop-Service MSExchangeFastSearch WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search (MSExchangeFastSearch)' to stop... [PS] C:\>Stop-Service HostControllerService WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostcontrollerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostcontrollerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostcontrollerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostcontrollerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostcontrollerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostcontrollerService)' to stop... |
We can stop both services with a one-liner.
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[PS] C:\>Get-Service -Name "HostControllerService","MSExchangeFastSearch" | Stop-Service WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostControllerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostControllerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostControllerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller (HostControllerService)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search (MSExchangeFastSearch)' to stop... WARNING: Waiting for service 'Microsoft Exchange Search (MSExchangeFastSearch)' to stop... |
Both the services stopped. Proceed with the next steps.
Identify database and remove indexing folder
If you know the database location, go to that folder in Windows Explorer. If you don’t know, you can run the following command. It will show the database folder path.
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[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase DB13-2016 | Select EdbFilePath EdbFilePath ----------- F:\DB13-2016\DB13-2016.edb |
Go to the folder F:\DB13-2016\ in Windows Explorer. Delete the Global Unique Identifier (GUID) folder.
The next step is to start the services.
Start the services
Start both the services with the first two commands or use the third command as a one-liner.
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[PS] C:\>Start-Service MSExchangeFastSearch [PS] C:\>Start-Service HostControllerService [PS] C:\>Get-Service -Name "HostControllerService","MSExchangeFastSearch" | Start-Service |
Both the services started. It will create a new GUID folder in the directory F:\DB13-2016\.
Check the status of the indexing
Give it a few minutes before checking the status. Run the following command.
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[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | Sort Name | Select Name, Status, ContentIndexState Name Status ContentIndexState ---- ------ ----------------- DB10-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB10-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB11-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB11-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB12-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB12-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB13-2016\EX01 Mounted Crawling DB13-2016\EX02 Healthy FailedAndSuspended |
Database DB13-2016 Content Index State is showing that it is Crawling. It can take some time before it finishes the crawling. Do you like to have an estimate of the mailboxes remaining? Read more on how to monitor Exchange database index state crawling. After it finishes the crawling, it will change to a Healthy state. The FailedAndSuspended will also change to a Healthy state.
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[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | Sort Name | Select Name, Status, ContentIndexState Name Status ContentIndexState ---- ------ ----------------- DB10-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB10-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB11-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB11-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB12-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB12-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy DB13-2016\EX01 Mounted Healthy DB13-2016\EX02 Healthy Healthy |
Conclusion
In this article, you learned how to repair failed content index in Exchange Server. It’s important to repair the search indexing after working hours or at an off-peak time as it can impact performance. If you enjoyed this article, you may also like Outlook keeps asking for password after migration. Don’t forget to follow us and share this article.
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