Exchange 2016 состояние индекса содержимого ошибка

Fixing a “Failed or FailedAndSuspended” Database Content Index in Exchange Server 2013/2016

Uses of Content Index is it will try to search Mailbox content in both Outlook and OWA (Outlook Web Access).

Sometimes there are chances of Database Failover and Switchover.

When Automatic Switchover or Failover takes place then checking Content Index State will be a good move.

Note: Rebuilding or Repairing the Content Index can cause High CPU Utilization on the servers. So it is recommended to perform such task only on the Week Ends or After Hours.

Checking the Content Index using the Below command

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * |fl -auto

This will show all the Content Index State for all the Databases in the Organization

Today I’ve found my Database Content Index FailedAndSuspended as shown below:

Verified with above error mentioned using Command line in Exchange Management Shell & found the same as shown below:

Events that can be generated to identify the situation is Event ID 1012 as shown below:

Ok now it’s confirmed let’s proceed with troubleshooting steps

First Stop the services

1: Microsoft Exchange Search

Command : Stop-Service MsExchangeFastSearch

2: Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller

Command : Stop-Service HostControllerService

Now it’s time to identify the Database to Rename, Delete or Moving the Content Index “Catalog Folder”

If you don’t know the Path of Database (EDB File Path) then run the below command it will show the EDB File Path

Locate the folder then this “Catalog Folder or Guid” can be either Renamed, deleted or Moved to another location.

Here I’ve Renamed the folder to “Guid.old” as shown below:

Then I’ve restarted both the services as shown below:

Ones you start the service check the status of the Content Index for the Databases which are “Failed or FailedAndSuspended” by running the below command:

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server “Server Name”

First it will go Unknown state

Then status of Content Index will be changed from Unknown state to Crawling
as shown below:

Both the Databases changed to Healthy State from Crawling as shown below:

If this is Server is Member of DAG then run the below command as shown below:

Command :

Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy “Database Name\Server Name” -CatalogOnly -BeginSeed

If you have multiple Databases and it’s Content Index in “Failed or FailedAndSuspended” State then run the below command:

Command :

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * |Where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq “FailedAndSuspended” |Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -CatalogOnly

Fixing a “Failed or FailedAndSuspended” Database Content Index in Exchange Server 2013/2016

Uses of Content Index is it will try to search Mailbox content in both Outlook and OWA (Outlook Web Access).

Sometimes there are chances of Database Failover and Switchover.

When Automatic Switchover or Failover takes place then checking Content Index State will be a good move.

Note: Rebuilding or Repairing the Content Index can cause High CPU Utilization on the servers. So it is recommended to perform such task only on the Week Ends or After Hours.

Checking the Content Index using the Below command

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * |fl -auto

This will show all the Content Index State for all the Databases in the Organization

Today I’ve found my Database Content Index FailedAndSuspended as shown below:

Verified with above error mentioned using Command line in Exchange Management Shell & found the same as shown below:

Events that can be generated to identify the situation is Event ID 1012 as shown below:

Ok now it’s confirmed let’s proceed with troubleshooting steps

First Stop the services

1: Microsoft Exchange Search

Command : Stop-Service MsExchangeFastSearch

2: Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller

Command : Stop-Service HostControllerService

Now it’s time to identify the Database to Rename, Delete or Moving the Content Index “Catalog Folder”

If you don’t know the Path of Database (EDB File Path) then run the below command it will show the EDB File Path

Locate the folder then this “Catalog Folder or Guid” can be either Renamed, deleted or Moved to another location.

Here I’ve Renamed the folder to “Guid.old” as shown below:

Then I’ve restarted both the services as shown below:

Ones you start the service check the status of the Content Index for the Databases which are “Failed or FailedAndSuspended” by running the below command:

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server “Server Name”

First it will go Unknown state

Then status of Content Index will be changed from Unknown state to Crawling
as shown below:

Both the Databases changed to Healthy State from Crawling as shown below:

If this is Server is Member of DAG then run the below command as shown below:

Command :

Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy “Database NameServer Name” -CatalogOnly -BeginSeed

If you have multiple Databases and it’s Content Index in “Failed or FailedAndSuspended” State then run the below command:

Command :

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * |Where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq “FailedAndSuspended” |Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -CatalogOnly

The topic of discussion in this article is one of the most common Exchange Server errors “Content Index state failed’. Basically, we will be going to learn how to get rid of this unwanted Exchange Server error (for versions above Exchange Server 2010).

Are you not able to search your mailbox while using Outlook web access? Yes, some Exchange 2016 users face this issue while using Outlook web access. When the Exchange users get struck with Content Index State Failed error, it:

• Stops or interrupts the search process in the Outlook Web Access and Outlook applications
• Blocks the activation of the passive database copies while switching over the database

However, this error is not found to affect the accessibility of Exchange data. Users can still send and receive emails. So, it only impacts the mailbox search attempted by the users. And this is mostly noticed in Exchange 2016 and sometimes in Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2010 too.

How to check the content index state?

You can check the content index state in your Exchange Server by running this command in Exchange Management Shell.

Get-MailboxDatabase Database Name | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

You will get results like your content index status is failed and suspended. You can get it for more than one content Index state.

Exchange administrators can take the help of the Exchange Management Shell for making content index state in the healthy state again.

We are going to run the commands in the Exchange Management Shell for fixing the ‘content index state failed’ error.

How to fix the content index state failed error?

Exchange administrators can take the help of the Exchange Management Shell for making the content index state healthy again. However, before starting with the fixes, check the content index state using the Exchange admin center too. For this login to the Exchange admin center and go to servers > databases and check the content index status of the required database.

Now, we are going to run the commands in the Exchange Management Shell for fixing the ‘content index state failed’ error.

Case1: When Exchange Server is a member of the Database Availability Group

Follow the below-given instructions carefully to repair the content index error:

1. To know which content indexes are affected and show the failed status, run this command in Exchange Management Shell:

   Get-MailboxDatabase Database Name | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

2. Repair the catalog of the affected database by executing this command:

   Update-MailboxDatabasecopy DatabaseServer1 –sourceserver Server Name –catalogonly

   Here, use Database Name in the format DatabaseServer and the source server name is the one in a healthy state.

   The time for the completion of this update is dependent on its size. Repeat this procedure for all damaged database copies.

3. To check if the procedure has worked successfully, execute this command and see if the status has been changed to Healthy.

Get-MailboxDatabase Database Name | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

If the status of the content index state of all databases status is changed to healthy, then the error is fixed.

Case2: When Exchange Server is not a member of the Database Availability Group

Here, we have only one database copy with a corrupt content index state ( as Exchange Server is not a member of DAG).

1. The first step includes stopping two Exchange services ( Microsoft Exchange Search and Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller) either from the interface or running these commands in Exchange Management Shell.
   • Stop-Service MSExchangeFastSearch
   • Stop-Service HostControllerService
2. Navigate to the database saving location on your Exchange system. Here, search for the folder with a long string (GUID). This folder contains the content index of your database.
3. Delete this folder with the long string along with all the sub-folders.
4. Now start those Exchange services again, which were stopped earlier. Run these commands:
   • Start-Service MSExchangeFastSearch
   • Start-Service HostControllerService
5. Within a couple of minutes, a new folder with rebuilt content index gets created.

This solves the ‘corrupted content index’ issue in the Exchange Server database in recent versions like Exchange 2010, 2013, & 2016.

This issue doesn’t affect the accessibility of Exchange data. It affects Outlook mailbox search only. However, there are some issues like EDB file corruption and Exchange crashes, after which your Exchange data will not be accessible. Exchange database (EDB) file corruption can make the entire user data inaccessible. Though there are a few inbuilt repair options with Exchange, they do not assure the complete recovery of the data. But you can try Exchange Server Recovery tool that easily recovers all the corrupted and deleted data and saves it to destinations like Exchange Server, Outlook PST, Office 365, and Outlook profiles. This is an easy-to-use tool that supports EDB files of old versions like Exchange 2007 and recent versions like Exchange 2019.

Conclusion

If you are an Exchange 2016 user, you may face the ‘Content Index state failed’ error while searching the mailbox in Outlook web access. This error can be found in all recent versions of Exchange. Manual tricks to fix the error Content Index state failed are explained here. In addition, a tool is recommended for safe EDB recovery in case of database corruption issues.

The topic of discussion in this article is one of the most common Exchange Server errors “Content Index state failed’. Basically, we will be going to learn how to get rid of this unwanted Exchange Server error (for versions above Exchange Server 2010).

Are you not able to search your mailbox while using Outlook web access? Yes, some Exchange 2016 users face this issue while using Outlook web access. When the Exchange users get struck with Content Index State Failed error, it:

• Stops or interrupts the search process in the Outlook Web Access and Outlook applications
• Blocks the activation of the passive database copies while switching over the database

However, this error is not found to affect the accessibility of Exchange data. Users can still send and receive emails. So, it only impacts the mailbox search attempted by the users. And this is mostly noticed in Exchange 2016 and sometimes in Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2010 too.

How to check the content index state?

You can check the content index state in your Exchange Server by running this command in Exchange Management Shell.

Get-MailboxDatabase Database Name | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

You will get results like your content index status is failed and suspended. You can get it for more than one content Index state.

Exchange administrators can take the help of the Exchange Management Shell for making content index state in the healthy state again.

We are going to run the commands in the Exchange Management Shell for fixing the ‘content index state failed’ error.

How to fix the content index state failed error?

Exchange administrators can take the help of the Exchange Management Shell for making the content index state healthy again. However, before starting with the fixes, check the content index state using the Exchange admin center too. For this login to the Exchange admin center and go to servers > databases and check the content index status of the required database.

Now, we are going to run the commands in the Exchange Management Shell for fixing the ‘content index state failed’ error.

Case1: When Exchange Server is a member of the Database Availability Group

Follow the below-given instructions carefully to repair the content index error:

1. To know which content indexes are affected and show the failed status, run this command in Exchange Management Shell:

   Get-MailboxDatabase Database Name | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

2. Repair the catalog of the affected database by executing this command:

   Update-MailboxDatabasecopy Database\Server1 –sourceserver Server Name –catalogonly

   Here, use Database Name in the format Database\Server and the source server name is the one in a healthy state.

   The time for the completion of this update is dependent on its size. Repeat this procedure for all damaged database copies.

3. To check if the procedure has worked successfully, execute this command and see if the status has been changed to Healthy.

Get-MailboxDatabase Database Name | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

If the status of the content index state of all databases status is changed to healthy, then the error is fixed.

Case2: When Exchange Server is not a member of the Database Availability Group

Here, we have only one database copy with a corrupt content index state ( as Exchange Server is not a member of DAG).

1. The first step includes stopping two Exchange services ( Microsoft Exchange Search and Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller) either from the interface or running these commands in Exchange Management Shell.
   • Stop-Service MSExchangeFastSearch
   • Stop-Service HostControllerService
2. Navigate to the database saving location on your Exchange system. Here, search for the folder with a long string (GUID). This folder contains the content index of your database.
3. Delete this folder with the long string along with all the sub-folders.
4. Now start those Exchange services again, which were stopped earlier. Run these commands:
   • Start-Service MSExchangeFastSearch
   • Start-Service HostControllerService
5. Within a couple of minutes, a new folder with rebuilt content index gets created.

This solves the ‘corrupted content index’ issue in the Exchange Server database in recent versions like Exchange 2010, 2013, & 2016.

This issue doesn’t affect the accessibility of Exchange data. It affects Outlook mailbox search only. However, there are some issues like EDB file corruption and Exchange crashes, after which your Exchange data will not be accessible. Exchange database (EDB) file corruption can make the entire user data inaccessible. Though there are a few inbuilt repair options with Exchange, they do not assure the complete recovery of the data. But you can try Exchange Server Recovery tool that easily recovers all the corrupted and deleted data and saves it to destinations like Exchange Server, Outlook PST, Office 365, and Outlook profiles. This is an easy-to-use tool that supports EDB files of old versions like Exchange 2007 and recent versions like Exchange 2019.

Conclusion

If you are an Exchange 2016 user, you may face the ‘Content Index state failed’ error while searching the mailbox in Outlook web access. This error can be found in all recent versions of Exchange. Manual tricks to fix the error Content Index state failed are explained here. In addition, a tool is recommended for safe EDB recovery in case of database corruption issues.

Being a complex server having multiple structural entities, the Exchange Server is surrounding with different errors which may be structure based, database based or services based. Here, we are going to discuss one of these errors which could be the cause of concern among most of our Exchange Server administrators. The error indicates “Exchange database content index state failed”. It is generally caused due to issues in the Exchange Information Store.

You can understand the Exchange Information Store in an Exchange Server as the source to handle and respond to several users’ requests. Having this error means interruption in multiple functions offered by the Exchange Information Store which can be – Messages saving into draft while saving, DAG related issues, blockage in passive database copies during switch over of the database, halt or interruption in the search function with Outlook or Outlook related applications like Outlook on the Web.

All these effects on the Exchange Server functionalities cannot be ignored and you should check or confirm your Exchange database content index status as the very first step receiving any of these problems.

An Exchange administrator generally came across the issue while trying to run the health check command like this.

Get-ServerHealth <database name=””> | ?{$_.HealthSetName -eq “Search”}

You can take aid from the Exchange Management Shell directly by running this command as an administrator (run Exchange Management Shell as an administrator) to know the current status of your Exchange Server database.

Get-MailboxDatabase <Database Name> | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

Enter your database name in the above command (in place of <Database Name>) and press enter to execute the cmdlet.

From the output results, you can check whether the Content Index State is running or failed.

Another command which can display the status of the content index is.

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | ft –auto

So, as you now know that your Exchange database content index state has failed and suspended, you would be worrying about finding a solution to make it healthy and working again. We would surely help you in this by providing workable solutions for fixing “Exchange database content index state failed” error.

To repair the corrupt or failed database content index state, you can utilize Exchange PowerShell cmdlets but it wholly depends on the condition whether Exchange database is utilizing Database Availability Group or not. Also, this method applies to Exchange Server 2010 and above versions only as it includes the use of the Exchange Management Shell application commands.

Let us know these fixes in detail.

Note: User performing this method must be the Exchange administrator or have assigned administrative rights.

Start your Exchange system and run the Exchange Management Shell application as an administrator. For that, select the application, right-click on it and select Run as administrator option.

Now perform these two solutions on different Exchange Server conditions.

Condition #1 – Exchange Server is NOT a member of Database Availability Group

In this condition, there is a single database copy which includes a failed or corrupt database content index state. Execute these commands one by one to make this content index healthy again by rebuilding the fresh database content index.

1. Stop these two Exchange Services – Microsoft Exchange Search and Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller by running these commands in the Exchange Management Shell.
   To stop Microsoft Exchange Search service, run this command:

   Stop-Service MSExchangeFastSearch

   To stop Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller service, it is the command

   Stop-Service HostControllerService

2. Move to the Exchange database folder saving location on the same system, search for the long string GUID folder there and delete it completely with its sub-folders. This long string folder contained the content index of the database.
3. Next, step is to start those two Exchange services again. For that, you just need to run these simple commands one after another.

   Start-Service MSExchangeFastSearchStop-Service HostControllerService

4. Wait for some minutes. You would find the new database content index created within the new long string folder.
5. Check the indexing state of the Exchange database now for healthy status using this command

   Get-MailboxDatabase

   | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

6. You can now use the Exchange services and functions without any content index related issues.

Condition #2 – Exchange Server is a member of Database Availability Group

It is a condition where your Exchange Server is a member of the DAG and you have multiple database copies which are affected or not affected with corrupt or failed content index state. Let us know the process to resolve this situation.

1. First, know about the affected database copies by executing this command.

   Get-MailboxDatabase <Database Name> | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index* 

   Note: Enter the Exchange database name in place of <Database Name> in the command.
   The output would display the healthy and failed database content index state.

2. For all the affected (failed and suspended) database copies, run this command for each of this one-by-one.

   Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy <Database Name>** –sourceserver Server Name* –catalogonly 

   This command is to repair the corrupt catalog of each affected database. You need to provide the failed database name in place of <Database Name> in format of Affected Database Name\Server Name and provide the Server name in place of Server Name of which content index is found healthy. Execute this command carefully for other affected database copies as well by providing its affected database and healthy server name in the same command.

3. Once, all affected catalog are repaired, confirm your successful effort by running the command again to view if all database content indexes are healthy or not.

   Get-MailboxDatabase <Database Name> | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | Select Name,*index*

We have just discussed the use of Exchange Management Shell commands in fixing the “Exchange database content index state failed.” To run these commands, the user must have administrative rights and have technical skills to run these commands correctly otherwise failures due to chances of manual errors are high.

While the manual solution is feasible to fix this issue, we also suggest you to the most effective Exchange Recovery tool which holds the capacity to fix all sorts of Exchange database related issues and retrieves the complete data and its items with original structure and hierarchy. The tool supports all Exchange Server versions from oldest to the newest. You can know better about the tool by working on its free demo version which is made available for you at the software website.

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Conclusion

The blog introduced the potential manual method to deal with Exchange database content index state failed issue with some Exchange Management Shell cmdlets based on the membership of DAG. Keep reading such help blogs to get relief from more Exchange related issues.