Verification of an Index Volume is failing with "Failed to search the index volume. (0XC0041C67)"

Problem

The verify indexing tool performs a search as a final step of its processing. The search is performed to verify the health of the index volume and ensure that its contents match what is expected. If this search cannot be performed, the task will enter a failed state and will automatically be re queued. The re queue is carried out in case the search failed as a result of a transient issue, such as a network outage or the index server being too busy to service the search request.

The task will be retried five times, before being permanently marked as failed following the fifth attempt.

Error Message

After each failed search, the following Event will be logged on the index server that hosts the index volume:

A search failed with error "The indexing engine could not load the index".

Event ID: 41315
Task Category: Index Query Server
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
Computer: IndexServer.Domain.local
Description: A search failed with error "The indexing engine could not load the index".


Archive: User Name
Archive ID: 1CD5A296B2C25CF42A0AFBCB01D8B4EB21110000EVServer.Domain.local
Index volume ID: 14
User: Domain\vault
Maximum results: 5000
Timeout (seconds): 120
Sort order: snum

The Verify task report will show the following entry for each failed search:

Verifying Indexed items
The verify subtask has failed: Failed to search the index volume. (0XC0041C67)

Cause

The Indexing Engine failing to load an index volume into memory to service a search request could potentially be the result of a networking outage or another problem preventing the physical storage location being accessed.

To determine if this is the case ensure that the storage location is online and accessible.The index location can be determined by looking at the Index Volumes tab on the properties of the archive and clicking Details.

Solution

If the storage location is available and there are no environmental issues preventing the location from being accessed, the cause of the failure could be that the index volume has become corrupted. Corruption of an index volume is rare and is generally caused by problems encountered during a restore from backup, an incorrectly configured anti-virus scanner or other external software erroneously accessing and editing the files associated with the index volume.

The only action that can be taken once an index volume has been corrupted is to rebuild the affected index volume.