PowerShell Tip: Fix All Failed Exchange Database Content Indexes

Failed content indexes can easily go unnoticed when everything else is working fine however they will eventually begin to cause problems for you, for example by preventing database switchovers.

Fixing a single failed content index is easy, but if there are multiple failed indexes you can speed things up a little by fixing them all with a single PowerShell command.

To demonstrate, display all database copies (on all mailbox servers) that have a content index in a failed state.

Get-MailboxServer | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | `
where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq "Failed"}

To fix databases that have a content index in a failed state, pipe the output of this command into the Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy cmdlet with the -CatalogOnly switch.

#Get-MailboxServer | Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus | `
where {$_.ContentIndexState -eq "Failed"} | Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -CatalogOnly