Introduction to the content index failed error in Exchange
Exchange server is a popular mail and communication service from Microsoft and is being used by users worldwide. As the number of users grows, the data present in the mailboxes also increases and so does the database which holds all this information. Considering the data overload in the database, it is clear that an Exchange server is not immune from failure or errors. Sometimes you might encounter the error 'Exchange database content index failed and suspended' when searching for mailboxes from the Outlook Web Application (OWA). Although this does not normally affect the email flow such as sending or receiving emails, it can suspend the search activity on the database for emails and possibly cause database errors if not fixed at the right time. To prevent the database errors, you might want to convert the EDB file to PST. In this article, we shall look at why the error occurs and how to resolve the issue in different Exchange server versions.
What is the Content Index State Failed error in Exchange?
The Content Index State Failed error occurs as a result of issues in the Exchange server Information Store or failure of the Store to access the database index file and respond to multiple user requests such as searching, saving messages, composing, accessing mailboxes etc. This error might also occur as a result of very less hard disk storage space and the indexing function failing to read or write the data.
The error encountered is as follows : 'Database copy on server has content index catalog files in the following state: Failed'. Mailbox database copy Failed or Suspended.
To understand it conceptually, an Index file contains the search data and is normally located in the Exchange database folder on your computer with a long string of GUID. Whenever a user searches for a query or looks up in his mailbox, the Exchange Information store fetches or parses this information from the Index file and displays it to the user. When this error occurs, users are unable to perform a search and switch over to a new Exchange server or create passive database copies in the case of a failover.
