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Ted Fines
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Exchange search broken. Client search results don't return any hits after March of this year.

Exchange 2019 (15.2)

Indexing is running.
Get-MailboxDatabase | Format-Table Name,IndexEnabled

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Running a test search on a sample mailbox indicates search shows no output whatsoever.
Test-ExchangeSearch -Identity sample@domain

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And the search index status also seems to show that it isn't doing anything.
Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | fl Name,*index*
Creating a new session for implicit remoting of "Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus" command...


Name                         : db01\EXCHANGE
ContentIndexState            : NotApplicable
ContentIndexErrorMessage     :
ContentIndexErrorCode        :
ContentIndexVersion          :
ContentIndexCrawlVersion     :
ContentIndexBacklog          :
ContentIndexRetryQueueSize   :
ContentIndexMailboxesToCrawl :
ContentIndexSeedingPercent   :
ContentIndexSeedingSource    :
ContentIndexServerSource     :

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Here is what I tried:
stop-service msexchangefastsearch
stop-service hostcontrollerservice

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Browse to the edb file path and delete the folder there named something like 9726BCE3-622C-4675-8A20-57BE574A5C9B12.1.Single
Remove all four directories that are located under the following folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data\Nodes\Fsis

cd 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"

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stop-service msexchangehm*
Get-Mailbox -Monitoring | Remove-Mailbox
start-service msexchangehm* 

start-service msexchangefastsearch
start-service hostcontrollerservice

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But no change.  Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | fl Name,*index* still shows "ContentIndexErrorMessage" and nothing else.


Exchange

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Last Comment
Ted Fines

8/22/2022 - Mon
Saif Shaikh

Hi,
The search infrastructure is rebuilt in Exchange 2019 and this is by design.
Exchange 2019 uses the new search engine called "Big Funnel", using Bing technology to make the search even faster and provide better results. Search indexes are not longer stored on disk per Mailbox database, but search indexes are now stored inside the Mailbox database on a per Mailbox basis. So the context index for the database shows NotApplicable in Exchange 2019, and the unhealthy index state will become a thing of the past.
For reference: EXCHANGE 2019 RELEASED AND AVAILABLE ON MICROSOFT VOLUME LICENSE CENTER

Reference Articles:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2516a8df-db14-493d-a989-f59e8a3b647e/content-index-state-for-database?forum=Exch2019

https://www.reddit.com/r/exchangeserver/comments/ei5hql/search_indexing_showing_as_na_exchange_2019/


The change is due them moving the Content Index State from being a Database level feature (where it has to be in sync as part of a DAG), to being at the mailbox level.
https://www.codetwo.com/admins-blog/whats-new-in-exchange-2019/#search



Ted Fines

ASKER
Thank you Saif Shaikh.  Good to know about that change in 2019.

But Search doesn't work at all.  Search is broken.  How do I fix search in Exchange 2019?


Ted Fines

ASKER
I found this command to show how many unindexed messages mailboxes have:
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | ? {$_.BigfunnelNotIndexedCount -ge "1"} | ft DisplayName,BigfunnelNotIndexedCount

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All of the mailboxes have heaps of unindexed messages.

I started with Experts Exchange in 2004 and it's been a mainstay of my professional computing life since. It helped me launch a career as a programmer / Oracle data analyst
William Peck
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Saif Shaikh

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Ted Fines

ASKER
Thank you.  The Mailbox Assistant command ran but didn't work.  I tried it for a few mailboxes.  The unindexed message count doesn't decrease.

I created a new database and moved users over to it.  Search works again.  Thanks for your help.  

I guess I'll just migrate to a new database every time I need to repair a search index.  This is their flagship "Enterprise" product.  Right.