Hello,
I have two Server 2012 R2 servers both running Exchange 2013 with SP1 (CU4). I know that CU4 is outdated now and I do plan to upgrade to CU9 very soon, but I was hoping to get this issue addressed first before attempting the upgrade.
I have one mailbox database and one DAG. The active copy of the database is on EXCH1 and the passive is on EXCH2. The database status on EXCH1 is Mounted and the database status on EXCH2 is Healthy. But on EXCH1, the Content Index State is Failed and on EXCH2, the Content Index State is FailedandSuspended.
I have found some references on how to rebuild the Content Index when the database is in a DAG using this command (Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq "Failed"} | Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -CatalogOnly) but this seems to only apply when there's at least one copy that has a health Content Index. Since both of my copies have failed Content Indexes, it doesn't seem that I can use this method.
I have also found some references that say you can stop the Microsoft Exchange Search service and the Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller service, then either rename or delete the folder with the GUID name in the mailbox database path location, then restart both of those services and the Content Index will rebuild itself. I tried that on my active copy and when I restarted the services and then ranGet-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus on EXCH1, I did see a new GUID folder get created but that folder is only about 16MB in size and it has not grown at all since I restarted the services. And on EXCH1, the Content Index state remains at Failed and I never saw it change to Crawling. I then tried stopping the Search services on EXCH2, renaming the GUID folder, and then restarting the services and once again, the GUID folder did get recreated, but the size remained at about 16MB and the Content Index State for that database copy still says FailedandSuspended.
On EXCH1, when I run Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | fl, I am seeingContentIndexState Failed and ContentIndexErrorMessage The database has been dismounted. On EXCH2, when I runGet-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | fl, I am seeing ContentIndexState FailedandSuspendedand ContentIndexErrorMessage Reseeding of the index is required.
Also on EXCH2, I am seeing the following when running Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | fl:
IncomingLogCopyingNetwork {EXCH1,MapiDagNetwork,An error occurred while communicating with server 'EXCH1'. Error: Unable to write data to the transport connection: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.} I am uncertain if this error is somehow related to the issue with the Content Indexes or if this is a separate issue. I am only seeing this condition on the server with the passive copy of the mailbox database.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post!
Daniel