Multiple databases with failed Content Index State

From time to time, it is good practice to check that the content Index state of all your databases are in a healthy state.

So if you encounter an issue with multiple content index states in a failed state (ie: more than 10), you first should try restarting the indexer service. If that does not bring most of the content index states into a healthy state then try the method below to update the content index state by mass per server.

1) Restart the indexer service on each affected MBX server. Open up the Services under Administrative Tools on your server. Locate the Indexer service and restart.

Check the Content index state of all via powershell:

 Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server <servername> 

If there are multiple databases listed in a failed state again, try the following

 2)      When you have multiple failed content index state, find all the failed ones first:

 Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server <servername>  | ? {$_.contentindexstate -eq “failed"}

 3)      Update all the failed ones (per server, this is better than doing it per individual database):

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus –Server <servername>  | ? {$_.contentindexstate -eq “failed"} | update-mailboxdatabasecopy –catalogonly

 4)      Check  that no more “failed” content index states are listed:

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server <servername>  | ? {$_.contentindexstate -eq “failed"}

 5)      Additionally verify via checking for healthy ones:

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server <servername> | ? {$_.contentindexstate -eq “healthy"}


6) If many of the databases are not mounted on their primary location as a result of the content index state being in a failed state. Browse to your scripts directory on your Exchange Mailbox server (default is D:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange\v14\scripts)

Then run in Powershell:

 .\RedistributeActiveDatabases.ps1 -DagName <dagname> -BalanceDbsByActivationPreference –Confirm:$false –ShowFinalDatabaseDistribution