Thursday, September 25, 2014

Exchange 2013 SP1 CU5: Content index of mailbox databases in Unknown state........and OWA users cannot do search on their mailboxes

Problem: Some user cannot search on their mailboxes using OWA

Cause: Content index of all databases on mailbox servers is not working and showing “Unknown” state.

Resolution: Applying the following actions on above failed mailbox servers.
Ø  Recreate the Search Foundation from scratch
a.       Stop and disable the search services and rename the Data Folder  "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data"
b.      Open power shell and navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\Installer
c.       Run the command :  .\installconfig.ps1 -action I -dataFolder "c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data"
d.      Output should be like
                                                               i.      [PS] C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\Installer>.\installconfig.ps1 -action I -dataFolder "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data"
                                                             ii.      Configuring Search Foundation for Exchange....
                                                            iii.      Successfully configured Search Foundation for Exchange
e.      Rename the Index files for the database that are active on the node .
f.        Start the Search Services

Ø  Removed a configuration entry that refers to the ContentSubmitters group. This entry is present in four XML files. Each file is called WcfConfigurator.
a.       you can find each file in the following folder: %ExchangeInstallPath%\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data\Nodes\Fsis\NODENAME\Configuration\Local
b.      Here, “%ExchangeInstallPath%” is the Exchange installation root path, and the placeholder NODENAME represents one of the following names. (There is one name for each of the four files that are to be edited.)
§  AdminNode1
§  ContentEngineNode1
§  IndexNode1
§  InteractionEngineNode1

                                                         i.            These are text files. You can use Notepad or any other convenient plain text editor to change them. Make sure that you make only the change that is described here.
                                                       ii.            Each file contains at most one line that contains the following: <AuthorizedRole>ContentSubmitters</AuthorizedRole>
                                                      iii.            Remove this line, and then save the file. Repeat this operation for each of the four files, and then restart the Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller service.
c.       Found the Index files in Crawling state as expected instead of Unknown.


Ø  Once all the Active copies are healthy and still the copies in failed and suspended state, then you can reseed the catalog files only using the below command


Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity DB\MBserver –CatalogOnly