WSS 3.0 Search Database
Posted by CJ on November 18, 2008
Stopping and Starting the wss search service seems to create some problems.
If you stop the service and then try to start it again I received a common error
“Databases must be empty before they can be used. Delete all of the tables, stored procedures and other objects or use a different database.”
So I entered a different database name and then received a error “File Not Found”. I initially thought that this error was referring to the database and that the database wasn’t being thus displaying this error. However I did find out that the new search database was in fact being created so the error must be referring to something else.
The event logs had a warning and two errors referring to registry issues.
Warning – Event ID 10035 – Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search
Could not import the registry hive into the registry because it does not exist in the configuration database.
Context: Application ‘bf3cdd2c-561d-4cd4-aba0-37ddf776115b’Error – Event ID 10029 – Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search
Error backing up registry hive to the configuration database.
Context: Application ‘Search index file on the search server’
Details: Access is denied. (0×80070005)Error – Event ID 2426 – Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search
Advise Status Change failed. The system is probably low on resources. Free up resources and restart the service.
Context: Application ‘Search’, Catalog ‘index file on the search server Search’
Details:(0×80041812)
Hmmm…..I finally came across this article http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Web_Servers/Microsoft_IIS/Q_22875574.html which discuses changing the Search Service account and Content account to use an administrator. Once I did this all was good and the service started.
I then completed a couple of stsadm commands and everything was working fine.
stsadm –o spsearch –action fullcrawlstop
stsadm –o spsearch –action fullcrawlstart
The Search Service account and the Content account mustn’t have had enough permissions to modify the registry which I wouldn’t have thought was needed. The article also mentiones that they worked with Microsoft on this issue and they recomended using one single service account for single server installations. This is the first time I have heard this.
Normal practice is not to use an administrator account to crawl content as you should use the principle of least privileges.
Anyway, hopefully this will help a few people out.
Christian Dam said
Good article, however note that if you are crawling using an administrator account you risk revealing the incorrect information to your users, especially if your are using versioning and publishing.
Cheers,
Christian
Gouranga said
Hey man, thanks for posting.
This is my problem with MS support. You absolutely do not want your content access account in the administrators group. The advice they gave you violates MS’ own policy of least priviledged access. What they did was fix a security issue by giving the keys away. They did not solve the underlying issue for you.
As Christian mentions there are potentially other issues they may have created in having you do this.
Mike said
I still receive “Could not import the registry hive into the registry because it does not exist in the configuration database.” even using an Administrator account.
Rithwik said
Hi,
I have tried many things on the net and nothing works for me. My search was working fine untill the DBserver team upgraded the server followed by a reboot. My DB server is load balanced and get the following error on one of the load balanced servers.
“Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. Check the event log for possible messages previously logged by the policy engine that describes the reason for this.”
When I try to recreate a Index through central Admin, I get the following errors again and again.
“Could not create a database session.
Context: Application ‘fe49c410-4762-45ca-ab2e-2530e0c23b6c’
Details:
The database connection string is not available. (0xc0041228)
For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.”
“Database xxx on SQL Server instance xxxx is not empty and does not match current database schema.”
“Could not import the registry hive into the registry because it does not exist in the configuration database.
Context: Application ‘fe49c410-4762-45ca-ab2e-2530e0c23b6c’”
The funniest part is I am able to create a new site and the indexing and search works there but not on the present site.
Could you please help.
Regards,
Rithwik.N.V.