Discovery Searches May Fail in Exchange 2010 Due to a Large Number of Terms in Query

  • Article

 

Applies to Exchange 2010 

SYMPTOMS

When performing a Discovery Search in Exchange 2010, the search may fail.

You may see the following symptoms:

1. Multi-Mailbox search may fail in Exchange Control Panel (ECP) and Exchange Management Shell (EMS) when multiple users are specified in the To: and From: fields. For example, if you specify 10 users in the To: field and 10 users in the From: field, Discovery Search Fails.

2. Multi-Mailbox search also may fail when you specify a search when many terms (such as 25 terms).

3. You may receive the following popup error:

Search 'SearchStatus\422af064-0123-42c1-a73a-90ab619165d5' has following error:

error occurred when searching <mailbox name>. The message is 'Search Failed on mailbox 'office\<mailbox name>\5b42d607-66fe-4949-9f86-299ee096ee0f'. If the search query used short words with wildcard(s) such as pat*, it can result in a large number of words or phrases because all permutations of words starting with “pat” are searched. Make search queries as specific as possible when using wildcards. '.

3. You may receive the following events in the application log:

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchange Mid-Tier Storage
Date: 4/6/2011 4:08:39 PM
Event ID: 3003
Task Category: Discovery
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: computername.domainame.com
Description:
Search 'SearchStatus\422af064-0123-42c1-a73a-90ab619165d5' has following error:
error occurred when searching <mailbox name>. The message is 'Search Failed on mailbox 'office\<mailbox name>\5b42d607-66fe-4949-9f86-299ee096ee0f'. If the search query used short words with wildcard(s) such as pat*, it can result in a large number of words or phrases because all permutations of words starting with “pat” are searched. Make search queries as specific as possible when using wildcards. '.

Time: 4/6/2011 4:19:48 PM
Event ID: 9877
Level: Error
Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Machine: computername.domainame.com
Message: Content Indexing function 'CISearch::EcGetRowsetAndAccessor' received an unusual and unexpected error code from MSSearch.
Mailbox Database: MAILBOXDATABASENAME
Error Code: 0x80070057

CAUSE

1. Query size in msfte.dll is limited to 64k.
2. Named pipe operations require buffers less than 64k.
3. If your query takes more than 64k, it will fail.

RESOLUTION

1. You will need to create smaller queries with fewer people in the To: and/or From: fields and then combine results from several smaller searches.

Bob Want, Senior Support Escalation Engineer, Enterprise Communications Services, Microsoft

Technically Reviewed by Dawn Cronin, Senior Support Escalation Engineer, Enterprise Communications Services, Microsoft