SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Search indexing component crashing

Question

Hello,

 

I installed SharePoint Server Subscription Edition on Windows Server 2022 (standard with desktop experience) and the search service crawling is failing.

The server has 32GB RAM, is Intel Xeon x64 architecture.

The MS SQL Server 2022 runs on a separate server, on Windows Server 2022.

I installed the SharePoint update from April 2024, and ran the SharePoint products configuration wizard.

I already applied the 4 security policies as described in the article here.

 

I have these errors in the crawl log:

 

The item could not be indexed successfully because the item failed in the indexing subsystem. ( The item could not be indexed successfully because the item failed in the indexing subsystem.; Failed to recover content group; Aborting insert of item in Link Database because it was not inserted to the Search Index.; ; SearchID = ..... )

The item could not be indexed successfully because the item failed in the indexing subsystem. ( The item could not be indexed successfully because the item failed in the indexing subsystem.; Failed to recover content group; ; SearchID = ..... )

 

In windows event log I have these errors:

Application: NodeRunner.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.AccessViolationException at Microsoft.Ceres.SearchCore.FastServer.Plugin.CreateIndexer() at Microsoft.Ceres.SearchCore.Indexes.FastServerIndex.GenerationBuilder.EnsureIndexerOpen() at Microsoft.Ceres.SearchCore.Indexes.FastServerIndex.GenerationBuilder.AddDocument(Microsoft.Ceres.SearchCore.Services.Indexes.FastServerIndex.MdmOperation) at Microsoft.Ceres.SearchCore.ContentTargets.IndexRouter.IndexBuilderAdder.DoWorkIteration() at Microsoft.Ceres.Common.Utils.Concurrent.AbstractWorker.Run() at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

 

Faulting application name: NodeRunner.exe, version: 16.0.17328.20136, time stamp: 0xc5aeb836 Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.20348.2400, time stamp: 0x9c244209 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x000000000001bdd0 Faulting process id: 0x337c Faulting application start time: 0x01daa12b85bf944f Faulting application path: E:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Search\Runtime\1.0\NodeRunner.exe Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll Report Id: b34c76ee-a339-4b14-9a24-b6e2f53344cf Faulting package full name: Faulting package-relative application ID:

 

Faulting application name: NodeRunner.exe, version: 16.0.17328.20136, time stamp: 0xc5aeb836 Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.20348.2400, time stamp: 0x9c244209 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x000000000001bdd0 Faulting process id: 0x383c Faulting application start time: 0x01daa12bbc509dc8 Faulting application path: E:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Search\Runtime\1.0\NodeRunner.exe Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll Report Id: 70f2a049-2211-4f2f-aac5-c3c0d9c9e168 Faulting package full name: Faulting package-relative application ID:

 

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Hi @Sergiu ,

Thank you for posting in this community.

I found a thread with the same problem as yours and his solution was: The solution was throwing a lot of CPU and Memory at the crawling machine for the time being, so i was able to smoothly create a new SSA with the index place on the D:\ drive instead. This higher specced machine, quickly got through a full crawl without any error, after which i could remove the old one.

Reference:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/850120/crawl-error-the-item-could-not-be-indexed-successf

Hope the information can help you. And if there have any unclear or misunderstanding, please feel free to post back and we’ll continue to help you all the time!

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Answer 2

Hi everyone! Here’s an update on the issue:

We’ve had several meetings with the Microsoft engineer to investigate the problem further. Despite ensuring that the servers had sufficient RAM allocated, the issue persisted.

However, I discovered something interesting. Windows Error Reporting (WER) was generating an overwhelming number of logs, even when the noderunner.exe process wasn’t running. In the Event Viewer, I noticed logs pointing to the problem were being generated continuously, along with thousands of restart logs per millisecond.

As a test, we disabled Windows Error Reporting using the Disable-WindowsErrorReporting command. Surprisingly, this resolved the issue—noderunner.exe stopped crashing!

This finding seems to have stabilized the system, but I’d like to explore further why WER was causing such behavior. Let me know your thoughts or if you need more details.

Let me know if this helps.

Cheers!

Michel