Fix a failed and suspended content index state on MS Exchange

Abstract: During a health check from your Microsoft Exchange server you found out that a content index state on Microsoft Exchange isn´t any longer healthy.

The issue with the content index state could be found on various places. For example if you run:

Get-ServerHealth exch02.int.contoso.com | ?{$_.HealthSetName -eq “Search”}

you might see the error:

exch02.... NotApplicable   SearchCopyStatusH... EXCHMB1-DE-3GB  Search          Unhealthy  None
exch02.... NotApplicable   SearchLocalPassiv... EXCHMB1-DE-3GB  Search          Unhealthy  None

or if you run

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq “FailedAndSuspended”}

or

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server $env:computername | where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq “FailedAndSuspended”}

You might see a

Name                                Status          CopyQueue ReplayQueue LastInspectedLogTime   ContentIndex
                                                    Length    Length                             State
----                                ------          --------- ----------- --------------------   ------------
EXCHMB1-DE-3GB\EXCH02               Healthy         0         0           2016-06-21 12:00:36    FailedAnd...

You will also see the error inside the eventlog:

The indexing of mailbox database DEFFMEXCHMB1-DE-3GB encountered an unexpected exception. Error details: Microsoft.Exchange.Search.Core.Abstraction.OperationFailedException: The component operation has failed. --->

Fixing the issue is quite easy if you have a DAG in place and the index is broken on only one DAG member. Simply run the following:

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus * | where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq “FailedAndSuspended”} | Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -CatalogOnly

or

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server $env:computername | where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq “FailedAndSuspended”} | Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -CatalogOnly

You also can do that on a per DB level:

Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity “EXCHMB1\EXCH01” -CatalogOnly

If the index is broken on all DAG member then you can perform a full reset as explained here.

Cross information:
http://exchangeserverpro.com/fix-all-failed-exchange-database-content-indexes/