XADM: Data Loss Occurs If You Do Not Shut the MSSearch.exe Service Down Cleanly or If You Stop a Crawl (309192)

SYMPTOMS

You may experience data loss if MSSearch.exe service is not shut down cleanly ("dirty" shutdown) or if a crawl is stopped. Dirty shut downs include using the kill /f command, a process crash, and or a computer crash.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

301378 XGEN: How to Obtain the Latest Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 2.

MORE INFORMATION

Because of the non-transactional nature of updates to the crawl queues, you can loose data during a dirty shutdown because documents may not be crawled until the next full crawl.

You will not loose any data when you stop a crawl if the subsequent crawl is a full crawl.

This behavior becomes an issue in Exchange 2000 because of the size of the databases. A full crawl can take up to a week to complete. Then, you must wait a couple of days for the incremental crawls to bring the index up-to-date with all the changes that occurred while the full crawl was taking place.