Full-text search not available after upgrade from SQL 2008 R2 Std to SQL 2012 Std

Question

We upgraded our production SQL Server from 2008 R2 Std to 2012 Std last week, and the installation logs show everything was successful, but now we are unable to do any searches against our full-text indexes.  The resulting error is as follows:
"Full-Text Search is not installed, or a full-text component cannot be loaded."
When executing the query "SELECT FULLTEXTSERVICEPROPERTY('ISFULLTEXTINSTALLED')", the result is "0".  The "Full-Text Daemon Launcher service is also running.  When running installation again to add the feature, it shows
"Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search" as being installed and unavailable for selection in the list of features to add.  As a side note, we did the same upgrade in our identical QA environment before production and everything was successful
and full-text searches are working correctly.  We have run the "Repair" routine in the SQL Installation Center and it did not correct the problem.
The full-text catalogs still appear when browsing through the GUI in SSMS or querying sys.fulltext_indexes and sys.fulltext_index_columns.  It is not possible to view the properties of the catalog in SSMS, though, as the GUI throws an error and an empty
dialog box is shown.  Any other thoughts?
Thanks,
AJ

Answer 1

I have no idea what is going, but assuming that it is a little pressing to get this fix, I think the best path in this case is to open a case with Microsoft.
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, [email protected]