Exchange 2019 Search Issues

Matt Pollock 246

Hi,

I'm in the process of migrating my orgs email infrastructure from Exchange 2013 to Exchange 2019
All new Exchange servers are running 2019 CU6, the Outlook client is the latest Office 365 click to run version, latest updates applied.

I'm 600 mailboxes into the migration, and I'm starting to get users complaining about being unable to search Outlook.
All of the Outlook clients are in cached mode by default.

During my investigation I'm seeing that whilst in cached mode performing a search eventually times out with the "Something went wrong and your search couldn't be completed", "It looks like there is a problem with your network connection"
Clicking the "Let's look your computer instead" link will return results contained in the local .ost file, but only going back as far as 3 or 4 months ago.
Cached mode is set to have all mail downloaded it is worth noting.

Putting Outlook in Online mode instead of cached mode does not improve things, exactly the same results are experienced when searching.

After reading a few threads I have restarted the following services on all new mailbox servers "Microsoft Exchange Search", MIcrosoft Exchange Search Host Controller" with the hop that the database search indexes will be refreshed/rebuilt. I did this yesterday and left the servers overnight, but there is no improvement in searching in my testing.

Has anyone had simliar experiences with their setup, and more importantly being able to fix these issues?
Considering Exchange 2019 is now on CU6 I find that this issue still being apparent is really poor.

Thanks

Matt

Dani Zontag 1 Reputation point

2020-12-15T21:40:07.363+00:00

Exchange 2019 CU8 got released today, give it a try, KB458885.
this included fix might do the trick?: - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4583542
!Daniel Bradley 1,056 Reputation points MVP

2022-04-04T07:53:39.12+00:00

Hi! I found this resolves permanently now! It is a link to my blog where we found a permanent fix without having to migrate to a new DB or start the mailbox assistant.
https://ourcloudnetwork.com/permanently-resolve-big-funnel-indexing-issues-in-exchange-server-2019/

13 answers

Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,371 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-08-17T02:33:22.733+00:00

Do users have the same search issue when use OWA?
Do all user mailboxes moved to Exchange 2019 have this issue? Please try to create a new user mailbox on Exchange 2019, check if the search issue can be reproduced on it.

Try to create a new Outlook profile for one migrated mailbox, then test the search again with Outlook cached mode and online mode.
If you have other databases on Exchange 2019, you can move some mailboxes to a new database. Verify if something can be fixed during the migration.
Please also check event logs for any related error information. Since "It looks like there is a problem with your network connection" is displayed, don't forget to check your network connection and network-load performance.
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Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,371 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-08-19T09:26:57.33+00:00

Just checking in to see if above information was helpful.
Since your phenomenon is different from a known searching issue of Exchange 2019 mentioned by RalfMaas-1487, we need more information for further analysis. Pease let us know if suggestions above work for you.

Matt Pollock 246 Reputation points

2020-08-20T09:40:33.777+00:00

After a bit of testing I am noticing the following behaviour.

Searching in cached mode enables the best experience, but is still inconsistent in terms of results returned.

Rebuilding the Outlook search index also gives better results once reindexed.

OWA searching is a lot quicker and the results seem more accurate.

searches using the Outlook mobile client are also a lot quicker and more accurate than Outlook desktop client.
All issues seem to centre around the Outlook client and intermittent issues being able to access Exchange 2019.
In parallel to this I am also noticing intermittent failures with Outlook being able to access mailbox automatic replies.
Again the issues are not present in OWA or with the Outlook mobile client.

Matt Pollock 246 Reputation points

2020-08-20T09:40:57.737+00:00

Finally I have also noted errors in the event logs on all of the new Exchange 2019 servers relating autodiscover and EWS issues.

The MSExchangeServicesAppPool looks to be restarting at least once a day on each server due to errors.

Event ID's - Event 1 MSExchange Autodiscover,
Event 4999 MSExchange Common,
Event ID 1325 ASP.NET 4.0.30319.0 all recorded regulary within seconds of each other.

Clearly something is not right in Exchange 2019 CU6

Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,371 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-08-21T07:27:58.443+00:00

Do all users use the same version of Outlook? If available, you can try with other versions of Outlook.
Do you check the network load when reproduce the searching issue?

For cached mode, Outlook uses Windows Search Service. It's different from OWA and Outlook online mode. From your description, the searching issue only occurs for Outlook client side, cached mode works better, and rebuilding Outlook search index gives better results, your issue may be caused by Outlook performance. You can check this for more information: How to troubleshoot performance issues in Outlook.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,371 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-08-21T07:45:32.363+00:00

Do you get any errors when setup a new Outlook profile with Autodiscover for Exchange 2019 mailbox?
Please make sure Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8 is installed and other prerequisites are met before installing Exchange 2019 CU6. For your reference: Cumulative Update 6 for Exchange Server 2019.

As mentioned above, this issue is more related to Outlook performance. We also can test with other Outlook version and another computer outside the domain.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,371 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-08-25T05:47:28.66+00:00

Is there any update on this thread? If you have solved your problem, could you share with us? Maybe it will help more people with similar problems.
If there is anything else we can do for you, please feel free to post in the forum.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
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Ralf Maas 16 Reputation points

2020-08-18T14:40:17.873+00:00

Hmm,

I don't get it that this problem is ignored.
this bug mentioned here
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/60aab333-0a33-4568-b2e7-a3ab0cedfc1d/search-bug-with-exchange-2019?forum=Exch2019

IS STILL NOT FIXED!!!!! all our customers migrated or started with new forrest with(from) exchange 2019 cu3 and now are on CU6 have still this search issue problemen.
De search in OWA and Outlook in Online mode have the problem that not all results will be showed when you search for emails with specific words.

the only solution is to enable Outlook cached mode so windows search handles the search in outlook for you.
this is not acceptable by any means. You can't run cached mode in VDI envoirments etc..... for the sake of expensive diskspace usage

also moving mailboxes between databases will not resovle the issue.. it wil come back for new emails. the search index does not correctly index or repair itself.

the new search engine in exchange 2019 is not working as expected. That microsoft removed to rebuild the search index... we have no options to repair it ourself. also the search services are running on exchange 2019 ...

my advices for you is to not migrate, let the mailboxes stay on your exchange 2013/2016. and migrate when microsoft fixes this.
no worth the complaints from your end-users and that you need to disappoint in the end.

Give us an solution please in exchange 2019 CU7 build
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1 person found this answer helpful.
Matt Pollock 246 Reputation points

2020-08-20T09:38:46.827+00:00

After a bit of testing I am noticing the following behaviour.

Searching in cached mode enables the best experience, but is still inconsistent in terms of results returned.

Rebuilding the Outlook search index also gives better results once reindexed.

OWA searching is a lot quicker and the results seem more accurate.

searches using the Outlook mobile client are also a lot quicker and more accurate than Outlook desktop client.
All issues seem to centre around the Outlook client and intermittent issues being able to access Exchange 2019.
In parallel to this I am also noticing intermittent failures with Outlook being able to access mailbox automatic replies.
Again the issues are not present in OWA or with the Outlook mobile client.

Matt Pollock 246 Reputation points

2020-08-20T09:39:59.06+00:00

Finally I have also noted errors in the event logs on all of the new Exchange 2019 servers relating autodiscover and EWS issues.

The MSExchangeServicesAppPool looks to be restarting at least once a day on each server due to errors.

Event ID's - Event 1 MSExchange Autodiscover,
Event 4999 MSExchange Common,
Event ID 1325 ASP.NET 4.0.30319.0 all recorded regulary within seconds of each other.

Clearly something is not right in Exchange 2019 CU6
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Dani Zontag 1 Reputation point

2020-12-15T21:40:39.307+00:00

Exchange 2019 CU8 got released today, give it a try, KB458885.
this included fix might do the trick?: - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4583542
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Marco Mandricardo 11 Reputation points

2020-12-23T23:32:30.24+00:00

have u tried? i have same problem described here

Marco Mandricardo 11 Reputation points

2020-12-23T23:36:10.763+00:00

are you sure it will fix this issue? have you tried?
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JackieB 1 Reputation point

2020-12-17T19:51:48.583+00:00

We've been dealing with Microsoft Support for months on Exchange 2019 search issues and they are completely useless. I don't understand A. why they can't easily reproduce this in a lab and B. whey they cant just look up other tickets of users reporting the same issue. Now that they have released CU8 of course we're told to upgrade to that even though there is nothing documented in the release notes that relates to this issue. Are companies just not using Exchange 2019? Or does everyone have their users in cached mode? (impractical for VDI environment)
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Marco Mandricardo 11 Reputation points

2020-12-23T23:35:39.287+00:00

have you tried CU8? it fix the issue?

JackieB 1 Reputation point

2021-03-03T03:30:09.203+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, CU8 did not fix it. Support has told us to wait until CU9 now.

John Poulmentis 1 Reputation point

2021-03-11T21:19:14.843+00:00

Figured out a solution that seems to be working at the moment. Our environment is rather simple--one on premise Exchange 2019 CU8 instance deployed onto Server 2019. OWA and mobile always seemed to yield better search results, but Outlook 2013/16/19 all were crippled. Mind you, though better, still not complete.

So, for starters, I noticed that Exchange Service Host Controller was set to manual. I set to Automatic and have it starting up at boot.

Second, I noticed Windows Search service was disabled. Again, set to Automatic.

Now, under Windows Indexing Options (Change how Windows searches), I made some changes. Went to Advanced > File Types and added EDB for the Exchange Databases. I then went to Modify and added our entire C and D (our data drive with the mailbox databases) for indexing.

A few hours later, things seem to be working just fine AFTER months of trouble.

Anyways, hope this helps!

John
www.validitytech.com

Marco Mandricardo 11 Reputation points

2021-03-12T10:17:45.677+00:00

wow, but this help with outlook in online mode?
@Lucas Liu-MSFT how do you think about this solution?
how it possibly work?

John Poulmentis 1 Reputation point

2021-03-12T12:41:33.457+00:00

Yes, as far as I can tell, all clients (OWA, Mobile, and most importantly Outlook Online mode) are showing the same, consistent and full search results. I am still testing and working with our end users, but so far, results are very positive.

And I ended up trying this because I kept reading that Exchange 2019's search was entirely dependent on BigFunnel. And clearly all of the "fixes" regarding BigFunnel never seemed to do anything. Windows Search was never mentioned as part of the problem. I even recall posts outright saying Windows Search on the server had nothing to do with it. Not too sure about the Search Host Controller but I figured I'd just turn them both on see how things worked out. Luckily, for us, the above combo seems to have done the trick.

John Poulmentis 1 Reputation point

2021-03-18T15:21:03.74+00:00

Unfortunately, after testing over the week, this is not a 100% fix.

SOME accounts seem to be working great! Others, not so much. :/

Really hoping MSFT pulls through with CU9.
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Matt Pollock 246 Reputation points

2020-12-17T20:30:41.567+00:00

I fixed this issue by removing EWS API 2.2 and installing on a different server.
EWS API 2.2 had worked for 6 years on Exchange 2013 servers, but turned out to be very problematic when installed on Exchange 2019 servers.
I read somewhere that the EWS API conflicts with Exchange Web Services in IIS.
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