Exchange 2016 Rebuild Content Index I had disabled the Content Indexing for several mailbox databases during a cross-forest Exchange migration, and needed to rebuild the indexes. And that is without indexing!!!! I tried Office 2016 for a couple of days, but unfortunately I had to revert to 2013 because the search in Outlook simply wouldn’t work. In this case, the indexing of your Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office system data files (the search catalog) may not be complete. This did work in addition with the following: In the control panel, go to. Add or remove Programs Tried all solutions but nothing worked.Reverting back to 2013. In the Indexing Options window click on Modify. If you disable the indexing, the search does work, but it’s ridiculously slow and unacceptable for the size of my mail folders (and most people’s, I guess). And we have kept the old pst file as archive and new emails with Exchange with Cache mode sync. I have a the same issue and I have removed all third party apps that may access outlook. Basically, I have expended about 3 hours on hold (L1 tech support 1+ hours) to get the above statements. I have been searching the blogs and Microsoft website but I am finding switching to Win 10 has been a mstake I am deeply regretting. If you have any concerns about performance impact you should perform this work at an off-peak time for your customer. I tried Mr. Swinehart’s solution and it did work. I’m pretty sure I had tried rebuilding the index and leaving it overnight to complete, but it had not helped. But turning the indexing back on breaks the search capabilities, with outlook returning “no items were found”. The problem appears to be related to searches in the OST. Level 2 tech gave up and jumped at the chance when I told him to give up and take me back to 2013. had to reindex 2013 but everything works fine. What in the world is going on here?? A quick google search resulted in this solution, and I did what was described in that article: I tried to run as administrator same result. If there is another way, please let me know. Thanks for your help , this is solved my problem . I was going to call them about this morning. Until it’s not, can’t do it. and increases the load on the server. Same problem for me, Rebuilding, specifying the whole folders in indexing options, nothing worked. Make sure to open it “as administrator” There are couple of parts to the index. Rebuild Outlook Search Index Go to File > Options and select Search in the left pane. I rebuilt the index and it finished in seconds (indexed 12,00+ itmes) but that didn’t improve Outlook. If you’re having trouble with Outlook 2016 not functioning properly – specifically a mailbox not loading, or a problem with search – then a quick and easy fix is to rebuild the Outlook Search Index. Set Outlook search options. Steps to Diagnose Exchange Search Issues. Buying in-store doesn't mean you have to pay higher prices. ... After trying almost everything in order to make Search working in Outlook 2016 (rebuild indexes, reinstall office etc.) Do note that while the index is being rebuilt searches probably won’t work, so just wait until the process completes. The amount of time it takes to complete varies depending on the number of emails, file size, and processing power. This will take a lot of time to rebuild the index and will consume CPU, memory and disk. “In Outlook 2016 Open File – Open Options – Open Search. I will not renew the subscription probably…, Anyone who have found a solution to this problem yet?? I have tried to rebuild the search index in windows 10 as well as create a new outlook profile and re-sync the mailbox but still running into the same issue. Check the status Microsoft exchange search. Go to Start > Administrative tools > services. Use a 3rd party tool called X1 Search. Had the same problem and now already solved…. Required fields are marked *. And it works just fine!! Enable indexing on the database DB1-2016 in Exchange Server Sorry, no. I removed my zimbra account (type of exchange server) in my outlook. In the top section make sure to UNCHECK any Microsoft Outlook programs you see there. Thanks for this solution that is the first that actually worked. It took about 4 hrs to get back up to around 115k items. I’m working with Outlook 2010 and Win 10. “File -> Options” is not an option on mine. However, when I went to Files->Options then Search (on the left), and changed the “Include results only from” option (on the right) to “Current mailbox,” it then found everything. Privacy Policy Alpenstrasse 15, 6304 Zug, Switzerland, https://practical365.com/exchange-server/exchange-2016-failed-content-index/, Teams Approvals App Delivers Simple Workflow, The Practical 365 Weekly Update: S2, Ep 11 – Talking Groups, Teams audio, Exchange admin, and Joel Oleson joins us for a deep-dive on SharePoint Syntex, Microsoft Adjusts Switchover Plan for Teams Meeting Recordings, Microsoft Wants to Talk About Group Sprawl (Finally), Configuring and Managing Office 365 Security, Managing Exchange Mailboxes and Distribution Groups in PowerShell. Select “File Types”. Rebuild search index of a mailbox in Exchange Online ... ‎10-29-2016 05:01 AM. Perfect! Filter descriptions should now read “Plain Text Filter”. hahah, Your email address will not be published. We use cookies for analytics, ads and session management. The problem is solved (for me anyway.) I always had problems with outlook searches, but this is unbearable. We’re working on a legal matter that has required us to search about 115 separate PSTs for specific emails. Before you start don’t forget to read how to: Monitor Exchange 2013 DAG Monitor Exchange 2010 DAG Install Exchange Server 2016 CU2 In Unattended Mode The first step is to find out which databases … Continue reading "How To Fix Exchange 2013 \\ 2010 \\ 2016 … You bring up a good point, I would be curious if others who are having issues with the index are using a 3rd party connector like you were vs. a standard Exchange or iMap connector? Pretty annoyed at this since search has worked for the last couple versions…, I tried this its shows indexing completed but searching not working in Ms office 2016 so held back to 2013. spent 4 hours with level 2 tech trying to fix (had already spent 5 days trying to fix myself including rebuild, new profile, reinstall thru download and image, remove outlook from indexing options, checking services.msc settings for the search to be sure in included desktop, etc. Mine still isn’t working. To Re-Index the database you need to use the Exchange Shell. Specifically, Outlook just doesn’t show up when you look for the indexing options in Control Panel, and the items are not indexed by Windows Search. I found two things that fixed my problem on Outlook 2016 using exchange and imap accounts… 6) Click “Rebuild”. Haven’t seen any yet….. luckily I’m still in my first month free subscription. We thought that perhaps each PST would need to be indexed, but that would take forever to finish the search. Due to no result it's showing, I have rebuild the Indexing, and even after the rebuild done whole night, still issue persists. How to rebuild an Exchange server 2016 Search Index? Ive tried it both ways indicated here. Select “Advanced”. So, I’m updating my comments here, the search works but it is really really slow. Right click on “modify” and then “repair”. Compared to Outlook 2007, I think it’s absolute garbage. Currently the user is showing 200,000+ messages waiting to be indexed and has been this way for several days and the number is … When I need to search in Outlook 2016, I am going to start Outlook in Safe Mode. I have been using the advanced find feature which works for me. stop these services: ... Exchange, exchange 2016, Powershell. 4) Click “Indexing Options” I think restarted the Microsoft Search service, which started a new index. The response with my method is just as fast as it used to be with Indexing. After on hold for 1 hour and 32 minutes, the L2 Tech support stated the following, “the engineers are aware of this problem and working on a solution.” Fix “should roll out soon.”. I’m very disappointed … Microsoft please fix it. I have the same problem….. :(. When MS upgraded my 2013 OL to 2016 OL I had the same problem. 1) Click on File If it is not making progress after overnight, then it is not going to work. I tried starting OL 2016 in Safe Mode, but I still get a message saying, “Search Performance will be impacted because the Windows Search service is turned off in elevated mode.”. You will see an icon on your taskbar that will alert that is is working. Sometimes there are chances of Database Failover and Switchover. Click on "File" tab. I’m yet another disgruntled Outlook 2016 user. Let see how to rebuild and Content Index on Exchange 2013/2016 if the content index of the primary database went to a bad shape.Note : This process takes more I/O on your disk . Before you start. I did that and now its finally working again, thanks!! Use the Test-ExchangeSearch cmdlet to test that Exchange Search is currently enabled and is indexing new email messages in a timely manner. No this did not work for me. All I do is hold down the CTRL key when starting Outlook; it goes right to Safe Mode. After upgrading from 2013 to 2016, searching mailboxes was impossible. Why didn’t they tell me it was ’emerging’ and not ready before download instead of wasting a week of my precious time. By that I mean does Swinehart’s fix above work for Windows 7? Move the mailboxes to the database DB1-2016. 8. PST and OST are the Outlook data files; to index the contents: Apparently having Outlook open is necessary. :(. Under Index Settings click on Rebuild. At the least, MS could strongly suggest following a major upgrade with an update instead of leaving us with lots problems to solve. Spent many hours trying to figure out and this is my solution… Hope it helps. I even went back in, re clicked on outlook, re indexed and re started. This article will teach you how to monitor the Exchange database index state crawling and estimate the crawling. My advanced search button is gray and won’t allow a click. So after two days and finally getting a Tier 2 Level Microsoft person. I ran updates and this immediately fixed the problem. 7. you have to rebuild the windows profile and it will do the trick. All you need to do is follow these steps to rebuild your Outlook 2016 search index: Click on File, then Options. Once the rebuilding is complete – finished! I clicked on Advanced and unchecked Outlook, then I clicked on Modify, went to Files tab, unchecked pst file type. I followed the steps above to remove Outlook from the search results. Search in Outlook still messed up – there are items in there that don’t exist. I used to be able to start typing the word and the search was already started. I have noticed that the Windows search service/process is looping all the time and I had to disable windows error reporting because it was somehow picking up on the corrupted search processing and looping along with it stalling out my computer. Crap. Your email address will not be published. This blog post will show you how fix the status of an Exchange Server Database content Indexing from crawling to healthy state. Outlook is a complex program. But when index is rebuilt Exchange will create a clone copy of the existing database and will use this copy to rebuild the index from the scratch.This will take lot of time to rebuild the index and will consume cpu ,memory and disk . If you are running Outlook 2013, be sure to check out our article for that version here. My ost and pst was not set for ‘…and File Contents’ as you mention. The index only took a few seconds, the number of indexed items did not change and search still had no items 2. updated the zimbra connector to the latest version 8.7 (even though I’m running zimbra 7.x on the server..). Both doesn’t work. Thank you so much. As you begin to use it and demand more of the program, issues can occur over time such as rebuilding your PST file, migrating emails to a new computer, and adding new mailboxes. I … Moving items doesn’t remove them from the results (very annoying) and apparently now I have some strange fantom items that are going to just stay there forever, even though the item is gone…. Here, I am going to show you steps in Microsoft Outlook 2010: Start "Microsoft Outlook". my email is through gmail and that is perhaps an exchange server and maybe why it is causing problems? Note that this step may require administrator privileges. This will take a few seconds to start and may take overnight to complete, so do it when the computer is not going to be used. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-outlook/outlook-2016-search-not-working/75b0acb4-ec1b-41a5-b84e-5c251679700d?page=2. This indexing bug is giving hard time to all the IT folks here at my organization. Now what. To resolve this issue and build the OWA 2013 or OWA 2016 and the Exchange search index again we needed to do the following. In this article, we will show you how to do that. Do you think each PST needs indexing? Mine is not an exchange account. I use search all the time, and then move things into other folders, or delete. Rebuild the Search Index. Published by blog on 5 July 2018 21 January 2019. open cli and input this command: Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus *|sortname|Selectname,status,contentindexstate. If you have heard of similar cases and a solution, that would be really great. Those choices become the search scope. Step2- These two things worked after numerous hours of rebuilds and selections via the control panel Indexing did not. Indexing Options will open up; click the Advanced button. I tried Mr. Swinehart’s fix but it was still missing some entries when searching for specific calendar events. if you have multiple databases on the same disk/server. Click Search on the left hand side; Now click on the button that says Indexing Options As Indexing takes a long time, allow Outlook to rebuild the Indexing for about 12 to 24 hours and verify the result after about 24 hours. So, thank you! how to fix this error plz help everybody Something went wrong and your search couldn’t be completed. At last, I can search in Outlook. Reseed The Content Index Catalog If The Mailbox Database Is Part of A Dag Quite a disappointment. The search works great in Outlook 2016……for macOS…no indexing required :). If you access the indexing options from within Outlook, Outlook does show up as an option, but the emails are not indexed either. 6. For an Exchange 2016 server that is not a member of a database availability group the failed content index can be rebuilt using the following procedure. One small glitch – as soon as I search, I get a message “Something went wrong and your search couldn’t be completed. I get the same error message “something went wrong and your search couldn’t be completed”. Same bad experience with outlook 2016. Natively there are some symbolic links, others are available for download. My issue was that Search function works good for “Current Mailbox”, but there is just no search result found for “All Mailboxes”. In the Outlook Options window click on Search and then under Sources click on the tab Indexing Options. What a disappointment, I upgraded to 2016, I upgraded microsoft and now all I get is the same thing very sluggish and wont search all my emails, have re-index a dozen times nothing works, why put out a program with bugs, please fix it. Rebuild search index of a mailbox in Exchange Online This was something new for me and couldn't find such a post here, so hereby I'm sharing the experience. The index is made up of folders that you choose. Any technological issues I have I come here first because I don’t have time to mess with the “fixes” that just leave me frustrated. The search is not accurate either. Good Feedback Michael – thank you for posting your fix. If anyone has anymore ideas how to speed up the e mail search I’ll try anything. A reindex happened which dropped the number of items from 157k to about 46k. restart and try searching. Swinehart’s fix works! I’m running Windows 7, but I read of people complaining with Windows 8/8.1 and 10. I definitely found a fix for this, (I have Win10 and Outlook 2016.) Search. 9. In fact, it’s a few programs in one: Mail, Calendar, Contact Manager, and Task Manager. Save my name and email and send me emails as new comments are made to this post. OK and Close out back to Outlook and after a while search should start to return proper results. They should be in the same path as the mailbox database with a GUID and word ‘Single’ at the end. So you should carefully consider the timing of any content index rebuilds, and how it might impact your end users. If you have other apps running in the background, then you’ll see “Indexing speed is reduced due to user activity.”. Create a new mailbox database DB1-2016 in Exchange Server. Select “Indexing Options”. Content Index. On the File tab, choose Options > Search. Following are the steps through which you can resolve Exchange Search Index Issues & fix Exchange search not working problem: 1. The re-indexing process can cause a high load on the Exchange server, which may impact performance for the server. Using the radio buttons change “how should this file be indexed” to “Index Properties and File Contents”. The step by step seems different. My computer is i7, solid state drive, 8gb ram, Windows 10, Toshiba. The content index files are located in the same path as the database EDB file, in a sub-folder named with a GUID. Ditto, same problem, can’t search now that I’ve upgraded to cloud ver 2016. Consider doing one by one. Does anyone know when Microsoft comes with the update for this problem? Is there really any benefit in changing from Office 2007 to a paid subscription for Office365??? Same result as Pablo; mine searches emails but not contacts. David Swinehart’s fix of Dec. 18, 2015 did it for me, after two days and nights of fruitless search – thanks from Germany, David ! To fix the issue you need to rebuild the search catalog, which restarts the indexing of your data files. Rebuilding the content index fully might be needed when the content index gets corrupt on both MS Exchange … I have always been a fan of groovy post and this, my dear Watson, is exactly why. Question for Lightning Printing: if you unchecked Outlook from the Indexing Options, are you sure that Outlook is being indexed? Scroll down to “pst” and highlight it by left clicking on it. Before signing off the tech thanked me for my patience in working thru their ’emerging program’. Follow our simple guide to easily create an easy to remember yet secure Password. In Outlook 2016 Open File – Open Options – Open Search. I found a Microsoft Issue on https://goo.gl/LMrd2d plus a workaround. This is just more pain and suffering from Microsoft on their legacy products. Okay! If I start Outlook in safe mode, it searches contacts. 5) Click “Advanced” in the window that opens Your searches should be fine. THANK YOU!! Type the following commands to stop required search services. Next, click the Indexing Options button. If nothing else works, you may need to rebuild your index. You can use the search function but may not find the desired mails or get incomplete results due to incomplete indexing status. There are two different ways to rebuild the Outlook index and resolve the Outlook 2016 search issue. This is easy to do, it just may take some time. Copyright © 2007-2020 groovyPost™ LLC | All Rights Reserved. Since my client has fast Internet and a reliable Exchange server it is not a problem to not use cached mode. Filter descriptions should now read “Plain Text Filter”. Exchange Content Index contains all the search data for an Exchange Database which helps Exchange show results to users when a mailbox is being searched. This is a two-step process. I did this fix back in May, and i have not had issues since… Good Luck, Michael. Select “Advanced”. Same experience. 3) Click “Search” in the window that opens Just to share. I think moving to previous version is the last resort. Turn Google Drive on again and it’s disaster again. I tried so many rebuilds, finally found this. OK and Close out back to Outlook and after a while search should start to return proper results.”. Same experience as Pablo. 2. Go to "Options". I have tried everything I can think of and currently I have indexing turned off for Outlook and I am using advanced find in outlook which takes a while to pull up search results. To rebuild the index from the Control Panel, open the System and Maintenance category and select Indexing Options. Repeat for “ost”. Disable indexing on the database DB1-2016. I’m not sure how to go back to 2013 through my subscription. You can see the status of the process updating at the top of  Indexing Options window. 07/09/2016 – Good evening. Should work now. 1) Stop the following services: Microsoft Exchange Search Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller. And it built the index quickly. Using the radio buttons change “how should this file be indexed” to “Index Properties and File Contents”. It gives me more than what I want (for it includes any matches in mail, tasks and contacts as well), but I’ll take it! Michael That sounds great, but could you please explain to us what the .PST and .ODT actually are, and where one goes to set them to index contents? Yup, same for me. Rebuild Exchange 2013 Search Indexes. This is crazy because I cant find ANYTHING!! Go back in and do some searches and see what kind of improved speed and functionality you get. Scroll down to “pst” and highlight it by left clicking on it. Next, step is to start those two Exchange services again. Select “Indexing Options”. But when an index is rebuilt Exchange will create a clone copy of the existing database and will use this copy to rebuild the index from the scratch. Instructions Log on to your Exchange server. I am still muddling along with the same problem. I was really looking forward to using Office 2016, and this was a huge disappointment. Could it be this easy? You set the Outlook indexing options, and then you check the search scope. Close Outlook and then open it again. select Office 365 No matter what no search results where found. Does this work for Windows 7? If you've been enjoying Disney Plus and want to share it with others, here's how to buy a Disney+ Gift subscription for... You can easily collaborate with Google’s web-based apps. Yes Julia, I have the same problem and would love to know the cause …. 10) add/remove programs run a quick repair of microsoft office. I don’t like the format of any of the pages for the folders in my inbox, the search function is a MALfunction. this worked for me! Thank you all for your answers. 4. for the Tier 2 Level tech. Search Enhancements and improvements from Exchange 2016: In earlier versions of Exchange, these passive database copy indexes will be updated from the active … 3. added my zimbra account again and vola now it works!! In Outlook click on File and then then click on Options. Oct 4, 2016, 10:14 pm EST | 1 min read If you are encountering problems with searching–unexpectedly slow searches, not finding things that should be indexed, or searches actually crashing–your best bet is to completely rebuild the search index. The following steps outline the needed tasks (in Outlook 2016 / Office 365). I tried to create a new Mail profile in the Control Panel, but I got an error when I tried to open the Mail application, with the message “The operating system is not presently configured to run this application”. Exchange 2016 reseeding search catalog does not rebuildExchange 2016 reseeding search catalog does not rebuild Hi Nexttech, To recreating database index, you should take steps below: However, it would be nice if Microsoft would fix what they broke with the update! I took Outlook 2016 out of Exchanged Cached mode and it searches fine. You can also open it from Outlook 2007's Tools, Options menu or in Outlook 2010 and newer, from File, Options, Search page. How do i fix this windows 10 outlook 365 2016. You can also search indexing option from Microsoft Outlook 2010, 2013 and 2016 to Rebuild Index. Unless things improve, I won’t be purchasing a full subscription. Abstract: This short tutorial drives true the steps which can be performed when the content index on an Microsoft Exchange DAG environment should be fully deleted and rebuild from scratch. For more details, please read our, October Update (KB3103470) for Windows 10 Insider Preview, Complete Guide to Using the Correct Charger or Power Adapter (and What Happens If You Don’t). HOwever i get the following error right under the search box, ” Something went wrong and your search couldn’t be completed.” Any one else have this error or solution to this? 2) Choose “Options” I tried Rebuilding the Index and Repairing from Control Panel. If your Outlook doesn’t search your mailbox when using the Exchange Search Index, the problem is most likely with the Exchange server. The search catalog is a file where all of your Outlook and Microsoft Windows items (data files) are indexed. I then added Outlook back, but reindex wouldn’t do anything. In Services section, check whether the Microsoft Exchange service is started. After de-selecting the “Show in Groups” under the “All” sorting menu, my Search now works good in “All Mailboxes”. Same experience as Pablo. Click on "Search" option (at left pane) >> hit on "Indexing Options…"(At right pane). Where do I go to do this??? Click File, Account Settings, Account Settings, highlight your exchange account, click Change, uncheck the box to use cached mode, hit Next and Finish. Search Enhancements and improvements from Exchange 2016: Thank you very much for your post. I didn’t think the issue would ever be solved, but this solution actually worked for me. Indexing Options will open up; click the Advanced button. I had gotten it to work if you don’t index Outlook, but any search takes a ridiculous amount of time, making it impossible for any mailbox or folder with more than 100 emails, to say the least. In Outlook 2016 when I go to Open File – Open Options – Open Search. And WOW….it instantly started to work when I did a search in Outlook emails, contacts and calendar. Everything was working fine until I installed the upgrade to 2016. Go to File > Options and select Search in the left pane. I opened Outlook 2016, clicked on Files, clicked on Options, clicked on Search, clicked on Indexing Options. so many have had this problem, surprised the tech had not encountered it before. In Outlook 2016 (perhaps others): I customized my quick access toolbar to include the “advanced find” icon. Will not load 2016 until I can see this is fixed. This long string folder contained the content index of the database. the other fixes didnt…. I relooked at all the Outlook Menu options etc, and then found out that…. This worked for me. In Exchange 2013 , the search index is stored with the Mailbox store where the users are located. The search appears to work normally, but after looking through a number of PSTs, Outlook 2016 appears to start missing some emails. In the Indexing Options window click on Advance. Select “Indexing Options”. Select “File Types”. Rebuild the Index. Steps to Rebuild the Outlook Index. This is what I did; 1. 3. So, if the indexing does not finish, try rebuilding the Outlook index. Next, on the default Index Settings tab click the Rebuild button. Then leave everything Open as-it-is until it says Indexing “Complete”. Unfortunately, the suggested didn’t work because in my Outlook [2016, on Win 10], the option you said to select was grayed out. It took a while for indexing to complete, but now search works just like it used to do. It would appear that UPGRADES do not necessarily incorporate the latest updates and so they can result in issues that have been solved by subsequent updates/patches. Someday this will all go away when real non-msft cloud apps can take the place of outlook. June 15, 2016 aclstrat Leave a comment. Hey ! THEN back In the Outlook Options window click on Search and then under Sources click on the tab Indexing Options. I think I have to go back to outlook 2013 as well. 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.