I have a fresh install of windows 7. The search index never seems to complete, and it keeps restarting itself. I would check the indexing options periodically, and it would say 25000 items indexed, it would keep increasing up to 70000. But the next day, I checked it again, it would say 10000 items indexed. Troubleshooting didn't find any error. I notice sometimes in the Libraries, it would say some of the folders are unsupported, other times it doesn't. I tried rebuilding the index a few times, even moving the Index location, but the same problem persists. This make the search useless, since most of the files are not indexed, my search returns no result most of the time. And I couldn't find a way to force search non-indexed files. Can anyone help me? Thanks

Hi Tedy, Can you try going into Event Viewer and see if you can find any clues on why the indexing service got restarted? And you can do a search for non-index files by opening the advance search, by pressing F3. You are not asking the indexing service to index your D: partition or any non-default locations by any chance, right? thanks,Jabez Gan [MVP] - http://www.msblog.org Contributing Author for: (Sybex) MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-643

Thanks for the reply. I didn't think to check the event viewer. And you were right, there are 2 errors related to the indexing, The Windows Search Service is being stopped because there is a problem with the indexer: The catalog is corrupt. Details: The content index catalog is corrupt. 0xc0041801 (0xc0041801) and The search service has detected corrupted data files in the index {id=2407}. The service will attempt to automatically correct this problem by rebuilding the index. Details: The content index catalog is corrupt. 0xc0041801 (0xc0041801) Actually I did add some folders on another drive (this drive was created and partitioned on vista incidentally) to the libraries. Do you think some files in the old drive was causing the corruption? I already checked the disk a few times, and no errors were found. What do you mean by adding a non-default location? Are we not allowed to specify a whole drive as a location to index? Thanks

Hi Tedy, You do remember that this is a beta build, right? :) Just to isolate this problem, I suggest that you remove all your additional folders you wanted it to index, and see if it will still restart. Adding your folders shouldn't cause indexing service to restart (ideally), but it could be a bug somewhere. Non-default location meant by folders that you want to index which you've added manually (eg, folders in your D: partition etc). Yes we are allowed to specify, but we want to isolate the problem, so please use the default locations and see if Win7 is still giving you the problem. :) Or if all fails, try formatting your disk and do a clean installation. Without doing any custom configuration on Win7, see if the indexing service would restart. Hope this helps!Jabez Gan [MVP] - http://www.msblog.org Contributing Author for: (Sybex) MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-643

Yes I do remember it's a beta, basically everytime I try to search a file :) I'm actually in the process of doing the isolation. So far it completed the indexing for the first few folders, I'm going to keep adding the folders and see if it completes. In the mean time, can you give some pointers about what to look for that might cause this? Security permissions, etc? I did find something odd though. When I started this isolation process, I cleared all the index locations and I only checked a couple of folders. When the indexing completed, I tried searching within the indexed folders, it works great. But then I also tried searching in a non-indexed folder (but included in a library), it acted as if it was indexed. The search was fast, and there's no non-indexed yellow warning bar. And when I added this particular folder as an index location, the indexing process started and finished within a few seconds, and the number of item indexed didn't increase, as it's already indexed. So does being included in a library override the index location setting (so it gets indexed anyway)?

Hi Tedy, Yes, in fact, libraries are indexed by default. I do not have any pointers on what to look out, as I don't know what would corrupt the indexing file. But be a lookout of long file names, or paths which are deep down in the file system (Eg: C:\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\\aa\a\a\\a\a\a\a\a\aa\\aa\a\, u get what I mean ;)Jabez Gan [MVP] - http://www.msblog.org Contributing Author for: (Sybex) MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-643

Turns out, it's onenote files that is causing the corruption. It was really hard to pin down, and I only found out by chance. Onenote 2007 adds itself to index location automatically (even after manually unchecked), making me mistake the corruption caused by the folders I was carefully adding to the indexed parent folder. Specifically I think it's old OneNote 2003 files that's causing it. Once upgraded to OneNote 2007 format the index completes succesfully. It's unfortunate that a single buggy application indexing can corrupt the whole search index, especially since it's a Microsoft product. I think the search indexing should be more resilient, and even if it has to crash, more info about file suspected to be the cause should be listed. Thanks for all your help.

Hi Tedy, I agree with you. May you should comment your above suggestion over at: Have Comments about Windows 7 Beta? (Part 2) Just to ensure that Microsoft devs are aware of your problem. Thanks!Jabez Gan [MVP] - http://www.msblog.org Contributing Author for: (Sybex) MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-643

Yes I do remember it's a beta, basically everytime I try to search a file :)I'm actually in the process of doing the isolation. So far it completed the indexing for the first few folders, I'm going to keep adding the folders and see if it completes. In the mean time, can you give some pointers about what to look for that might cause this? Security permissions, etc?I did find something odd though. When I started this isolation process, I cleared all the index locations and I only checked a couple of folders. When the indexing completed, I tried searching within the indexed folders, it works great. But then I also tried searching in a non-indexed folder (but included in a library), it acted as if it was indexed. The search was fast, and there's no non-indexed yellow warning bar. And when I added this particular folder as an index location, the indexing process started and finished within a few seconds, and the number of item indexed didn't increase, as it's already indexed.So does being included in a library override the index location setting (so it gets indexed anyway)? I was having the same problem exactly in a dual boot (XP and Win7) and even after disabling indexing on the Windows 7 partition. I found out that during the search the indexing on the XP partition was corrupting the Win7 partition. I finally gave up and disabled indexing on all partitions and the problem was solved/masked. The problem is still there but Windows is usable now. I'm waiting for Microsoft to correct the issues and fix it for me. I was repairing the indexing issues from the XP partition and going back to the Win7 partition for testing. I just got tired of fighting it. Let me know if you find the "BUG".

I am getting this on Vista...any ideas?Steve

My suspicion about OneNote 2007 turned out to be wrong. The cause for corruption was long filenames/path all along. You just have to patiently do a process of elimination by adding dan removing the folders that you are indexing. I had to write a program that list all the files/folder and check if the full path exceed the 255 characters limit. These invalid paths were created when I rescued my old hdd, and recovery utility created these problematic paths.

Wow. this isnt a possible solution since i have 350K items in my index. where are the logs that might tell what item is causing issues. also odd that indexing completes and then it dies after this is complete.Steve

I think the event log has some, but it wouldn't point out the exact file causing the problem. I think the easiest way is just to find a utility that will find the problematic files, assuming your index corruption is caused by the same problem.