The operation is unsuccessful when you run a population process on a public folder full-text index in Exchange Server 2003

View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

When you run an incremental population or a full population of the full-text index in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the population process appears to stop responding (hang). Additionally, you experience both of the following symptoms:

If you view the Full-Text Indexing container under the public information store, the Index State item displays a status of Crawling Incrementally in an incremental population scenario. And, the Index State item displays a status of Crawling in a full population scenario. In both of these scenarios, the index state never returns to a status of Idle.
No events appear in the Application log until you stop the index population process. In this scenario, the following event appears in the Application log after you stop the index population process:
Event Source: Microsoft Search
Event Category: Gatherer
Event ID: 3052
Date: date
Time: time
Type: Information
User: N/A
Computer: Computername
Description: The current activity on project <IndexProjectName> has stopped.
However, no event appears that indicates why the index population operation did not succeed.

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CAUSE

This problem occurs if you change the primary Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) address in the default recipient policy in Exchange 2003.

A full-text index of a public information store in Exchange 2003 depends on the default recipient policy SMTP address. If you modify the primary SMTP address for the default recipient policy, the start address for that full-text index is no longer correct.

Note This problem may also occur if you perform a domain rename operation in your domain.

A full-text index of a private information store is not affected when you modify the primary SMTP address in the Exchange 2003 default recipient policy.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, remove and then re-create the full-text index for the public information store. To do this, follow these steps.

Important The removal and re-creation of the full-text index will make this index unavailable for client access. Additionally, the re-creation of this index may use lots of resources on your Exchange computer. Therefore, we recommend that you perform this procedure during a period of low client activity.

Start the Microsoft Exchange System Manager tool. To do this, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
Expand Servers, expand your Exchange computer, and then expand the storage group that contains the public information store that you want to remove the full-text index from.
Right-click the public folder store that the full-text index is created on, and then click Properties.
Click the Full-Text Indexing tab, click to clear the This index is currently available for searching by clients check box, and then click OK.
Right-click the public folder store that the full-text index is created on, and then click Delete Full-Text Index.
When you are prompted with the following message, click Yes:
Deleting the full-text index on this store will remove the existing catalog file.

Do you wish to continue?
When you are prompted with the following message, click Yes:
This option will stop any in-process full-text indexing. Indexing will continue at the next scheduled time or by manually updating or rebuilding the index.

Do you want to continue?
Right-click the public folder store that you want to create the full-text index on, and then click Create Full-Text Index.
In the Select the location to create the catalog box, type the path to where you want to create the catalog, and then click OK.
Right-click the public folder store, and then click Start Full Population.
When you are prompted with the following message, click Yes:
The update process will start immediately and, depending on the size of your store, could take time and server resources.

Do you want to continue?
When you are prompted with the following message, click Yes:
The full population of the full-text index will take significantly longer than an incremental population. Are you sure you want to continue?
After the full-text population process is completed, configure and run an incremental population of the full-text index before you enable this full-text index for searching.

For additional information about how to configure full-text indexing in Exchange 2003, see Working with the Exchange Server 2003 Store . To obtain this book, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1b901872-69a7-439c-b2eb-8288c79a54f4.aspx (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1b901872-69a7-439c-b2eb-8288c79a54f4.aspx)

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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MORE INFORMATION

The Search Administrative Tool (mssearch_admin) is also available to "reset" the full-text index. This tool is included in the Exchange Server All-In-One Tools. To obtain this tool, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=46FD5644-BD0D-4CFA-95F8-64BA34BDE6A7&displaylang=en (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=46FD5644-BD0D-4CFA-95F8-64BA34BDE6A7&displaylang=en)

The Search Administrative Tool is intended to let you perform all the following functions:

Determine which Exchange stores in your domain have full-text indexes configured.
Obtain the status of the existing full-text indexes on the local Exchange computer. It also provides additional information about those full-text indexes.

Note This tool provides more information about the full-text index than is available through the Exchange System Manager tool.
Repair your existing full-text indexes after you perform one or both of the following procedures:
- A domain rename operation.
- A modification of the primary SMTP address in the Exchange default recipient policy.
Use command-line commands to interact with an existing full-text index. You can perform all the following actions by using a command-line command:
- Enable the index for searching.
- Disable the index for searching.
- Start a full population of the index.
- Start an incremental population of the index.
- Pause the current index population operation.
- Resume the current index population operation.
- Stop the current index population operation.
- Reset the index. Use this command as a replacement for the deletion and re-creation of the full-text index.