Full text search of .pdf files in a file table.

Question

I have installed the Adobe iFilter 11 64 bit and set the path to the bin folder. I still cannot find any text from the pdf files. I suspect I am missing something trivial because I don't find much when I Bing for this so it must not be a common problem.
Here is the code.
-- Adobe iFilter 11 64 bit is installed
-- The Path variable is set to the bin folder for the Adobe iFilter.
-- SQL Developer version 64 bit on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.
USE master;
GO
DROP DATABASE FileTableStudy;
GO
CREATE DATABASE FileTableStudy
ON PRIMARY
( NAME = N'FileTableStudy'
,FILENAME = N'E:\SQLServerData\SQL2012\Engine\FileTableStudy.mdf'
,SIZE = 4096KB
,FILEGROWTH = 1024KB
,FILEGROUP FileTableStudyFileTable CONTAINS FILESTREAM
( NAME = FileTableStudyFileTable
,FILENAME = 'E:\SQLServerData\FileTableStudy'
LOG ON
( NAME = N'FileTableStudy_log'
,FILENAME = N'D:\SQLServerLogs\SQL2012\FileTableStudy_log.ldf'
WITH FILESTREAM
( NON_TRANSACTED_ACCESS = FULL
,DIRECTORY_NAME = N'FileTableStudyFiles'
GO
USE FileTableStudy;
GO
DROP TABLE dbo.Magazine;
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.Magazine AS FILETABLE
WITH ( FileTable_Directory = 'MagazineStore'
,FileTable_Collate_Filename = database_default
GO
CREATE FULLTEXT CATALOG MagazineFullTextCatablog AS DEFAULT;
GO
--EXEC sp_fulltext_service 'load_os_resources', 1;
--EXEC sp_fulltext_service 'verify_signature', 0;
--EXEC sp_fulltext_service 'restart_all_fdhosts';
--EXEC sp_fulltext_service 'update_languages';
--EXEC sp_help_fulltext_system_components 'filter';
--RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
SELECT document_type
,path
FROM sys.fulltext_document_types
WHERE document_type = '.pdf';
SELECT *
FROM sys.fulltext_document_types
ORDER BY document_type;
DROP FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.Magazine;
GO
SELECT TOP 1 indexes.name IndexName
FROM sys.indexes
JOIN sys.tables ON indexes.object_id = tables.object_id
AND tables.name = 'Magazine'
JOIN sys.schemas ON tables.schema_id = schemas.schema_id
AND schemas.name = 'dbo'
WHERE indexes.is_unique = 1
AND indexes.name LIKE 'PK__%';
GO
-- Drag documents to folder.
CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.Magazine
( file_stream TYPE COLUMN file_type)
KEY INDEX [PK__Magazine__5A5B77D541728F3E];
GO
-- Wait for index to build
SELECT DATEDIFF(ss, crawl_start_date, crawl_end_date) IndexBuildSeconds
FROM sys.fulltext_indexes
--ALTER FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.Magazine START UPDATE POPULATION;
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Magazine
WHERE file_type = 'pdf';
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Magazine
WHERE FREETEXT(*,'new core licensing')
AND file_type = 'pdf';
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Magazine
WHERE CONTAINS(*, N'"Microsoft"')
AND file_type = 'pdf';
SELECT *
FROM sys.fulltext_catalogs;
SELECT *
FROM sys.fulltext_indexes;
SELECT *
FROM sys.fulltext_index_columns;
SELECT *
FROM sys.fulltext_index_catalog_usages;
Thanks for any help.
Tom G.

Answer 1

Hello,
We believe we have figured this out.  It looks like it has to do with the length of the default folder location for the Adobe iFilter.
I was able to reproduce the issue and the following resolved it for me.  See if this resolves it for you all as well.
Here is how to get Adobe Version 11 PDF filter to work.
 1 . If you haven’t already, run the following in SQL Server:
Sp_fulltext_service ‘Load_os_resources’, 1
Go
--you might also need to run:  sp_fulltext_service ‘Verify_signature’,0  --This is used to validate trusted iFilters. 0 disables it. So use with caution.
--go
2. Stop SQL Server.  (Make sure FDHost.exe stops)
3.  
Uninstall the Adobe ifilter (because it defaulted to having spaces or the folder name is too long).
4.  
Reinstall the Adobe iFilter and when it prompts for where to install it, change it to: C:\Program Files\Adobe\PDFiFilter
5.  Once the installation finishes, go the computer’s Environment variables. Add the following to the PATH.
C:\Program Files\Adobe\PDFiFilter\BIN
NOTE: it must include the BIN folder
NOTE: If you had the OLD location that included spaces, remove it from the path environment variable.
6. Start SQL Server
7.  IF you had an existing Full-text index on PDFs, drop the full-text index and recreate it.
8. You should now get results when you run sys.dm_fts_index_keywords('db','tblname')  --Note: Change db to be the actual database name and tblname to be the actual table name.
 Give this a try and see if this fixes yours. 
Sincerely,
Rob Beene, MSFT