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unable to search data in SQL 2000 server

Microsof SQL server 2000 is installed on  Windows 2000PCs .Network users did search and managed to see the items in the data base. Suddenly this searching process failed and now users could not do search.There are two  servers and one is active at a time.I have restarted the server and did run the synchronize index in the search engine which took many hours to complete.After this network users managed to search ,but this worked only for one day. now again search functions not working.Please any one advice me on this issue.
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Anthony Perkins
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Would you care to elaborate?  Posting the query would be useful.  If you are unable or unwilling to do that, can you tell us if you are using Full-Text Search?  If so, that definitely would explain it.
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sand1

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Yes we are doing a full  text search.we get an error saying "unable to access index in the directory"
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There is no response for my question ,I will add few detailed description which will hep your experts to respond.
In my  windows 2000 cluster network we have 6  server  pc s running with  custom made applications(Dal) and the two servers for SQL 2000.All the other network users access   SQL data base  and cluster servers.There is a search control  application came with the custom made application (Dal) which has following sub menus.
1. Synchronise index  2.delete index 3. build index 4. select search engine
As a solution to my search problem I did run synchronise index which took many hours and finally search functions started working only for one day.
Started synchronising index again  which completed successfully , but users can only see data in the data base from 2008 to 2010. They cant search the recent data stored in the data base. So they access them manually .

When we did the synchronising index , system make a new folder ( say\\san\index\ English 1_8) and setup as the default search index
There are many old folders in the index directory. Since English1_8  does not contain newer search facility , Therefore I  tried  to switch to the other index \\san\index\nglish1_7 folder which was created one month before  , by deleting the existing default English1_8.
Elglish1_8 is deleted , but unable to bring English1_7 folder as a default search .
Hope you can get an idea of the problem
1. Synchronise index  2.delete index 3. build index 4. select search engine
I have no idea what this means.  The way Full-Text Search works with SQL Server 2000 is that you have to do a Full population when you add it and then do one of the following 3 options every time you INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE data:
1. Manually update the Full-Text Search.
2. Shedule it.
3. Do it in the background.

So the question still stands, have you done a complete full population of the Full-Text Catalog of all your data.  If the answer is no, that would explain why users are not seeing all the data.

Unlike regular indexes, the data is not added to or modified in the Full-Text Catalog immediately after doing an INSERT or UPDATE.
Also you need to make sure that the account for the Full-Text Search has the appropriate permissions to the folders where the Full-Text Search catalog is stored.
If it's a custom 3'rd party full text search, you need support by the provider of the "dal" system.

Things you might ask:
When did it stop working, did MS supply a patch right befort, did your organisation implement a patch, has the server OS been patched, Has vendor released a new version that you implemented. Have any of the servers been moved to a separate network location. Have network changed i e NTLM version changed, AD changed, DOMAIN changed etc.

Things I wouldnt accept:
Your OS and SQL versions are unacceptable old. If you haven't, you should virtualize them so that they run on newer hardware. If the hardware is old, you're lucky it hasn't broken down on you yet. They also need to be network isolated since they are an attack vector. This applies if security is of concern.
Ofcourse, if the "dal" application supports a newer OS/SQL version I'd recommend that you upgrade your system.

You might consider a harddisk clone, and trying an inplace upgrade as a Quick and Dirty aproach. This way, you have a diskbackup should your physical harddrive fail. You could also do a network sniff from the servers, the unc path of the index and the machine asking the question to rule out that this error actually means something else. I e a network error, not anticipated by the programer, hence the 'oh your ftext search failed' message.

Regards and good luck, Marten
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I see and you are saying that no comment was helpful and led to the solution?

Would you like me to get a Moderator involved?
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I was looking for the solution with in the same system with out any change to the existing windows and SQL.Search functions started to work  only after  running the synchronising the index provided by the DAL program.Since this is a custom made application ,  it is noty easy to comment on this problem.I have noted down all the valuable comments given by all the experts .Thanks  to all the expers  for their comments.