Exchange Server 2013 Content Index is in "Unknown" state.

Question

Hi Experts,
We have two Exchange Server 2013 CU3 installed in our customer premises 6 months back on top of Windows Server 2012 OS.
From last week, we are getting the content index status as "Unknown" while checking the "Get-Mailboxdatabasecopystatus".
We have tried to reseed the database by using "update-mailboxdatabasecopy -identity <db> -deleteexistingfiles then we came to know the server is not responding on port 3863.
Attached image is for your reference.
Need support from experts to resolve at the earliest.
Regards,
Santhosh
Santhosh Sivaraman MCITP: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010 | MCSE/MCSA

Answer 1

Hi,
I had the same issue and was able to solved by recreate the search index component on the mailbox servers
Recreate the Search Foundation from scratch
Stop and disable the search services and rename the Data Folder  "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data"
Open power shell and navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\Installer
Run the command :  .\installconfig.ps1 -action I -dataFolder "c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data"
Output should be like
[PS] 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"
Configuring Search Foundation for Exchange....
Successfully configured Search Foundation for Exchange
Rename the Index files for the database that are active on the node .
Start the Search Services
Removed a configuration entry that refers to the ContentSubmitters group. This entry is present in four XML files. Each file is called WcfConfigurator.
you can find each file in the following folder:
%ExchangeInstallPath%\Bin\Search\Ceres\HostController\Data\Nodes\Fsis\NODENAME\Configuration\Local
Here, “%ExchangeInstallPath%” is the Exchange installation root path, and the placeholder NODENAME represents one of the following names. (There is one name for each of the four files that are to be edited.)
AdminNode1
ContentEngineNode1
IndexNode1
InteractionEngineNode1
These are text files. You can use Notepad or any other convenient plain text editor to change them. Make sure that you make only the change that is described here.
Each file contains at most one line that contains the following: <AuthorizedRole>ContentSubmitters</AuthorizedRole>
Remove this line, and then save the file. Repeat this operation for each of the four files, and then restart the Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller service.
Found the Index files in Crawling state as expected instead of Unknown.
Once all the Active copies are healthy and still the copies in failed and suspended state, then you can reseed the catalog files only using the below command
Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity BD\MBserver –CatalogOnly
Good Luck..
Regards,
Ayman Saleh