Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer fails to create a catalog for databases in Exchange 2010 with the error message Unable to SetProperty FTE_PluginList on catalog

I had a very interesting case a while back where the Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer fails to create a catalog for databases in Exchange 2010. Everything appeared to run fine, but when I checked the CatalogData folder, only 6 files were present that were either zero or a couple bytes in size.

I then looked in the Application Event Viewer log and found the following error:

I did some research on Unable to SetProperty FTE_PluginList on catalog. My findings indicated that one of the following could cause this error:

· Insufficient or missing permissions on the CatalogData folder

· Databases are on mount points with insufficient disk space

I verified that the default permissions on the CatalogData folder corresponded to the following table:

I verified that I had plenty of available disk space for the mount points. I was baffled!

I decided to eliminate the mount points completely by moving one of the databases to a local drive. Imagine my surprise when I got the same exact event!

Now I was intrigued and a little annoyed. After doing some debugging, I discovered that this error occurs when Exchange makes a call to MSSearch's COM+ interface to set properties on our catalog; however, MSSearch returns the error -2146762482. This error code resolves to CERT_E_REVOCATION_FAILURE, which means the certificate revocation check process could not continue, in other words the certificate(s) could not be checked. Interesting, very interesting.

I verified that the following registry key on the server was valid:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinTrust\Trust Providers\Software Publishing

My next step was to look at the configuration on the reverse proxy server. When I checked to see if authentication of commercial certificates was enabled, I discovered that it was not. Once I modified the reverse proxy server to consider all certificates as good and inhibiting revocation status on the certificates that MSSearch uses, the indexing completed on the databases. Now my users were able to experience the robust experience of search.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Thanks for the information...! A small Qtn: If the primary mailbox and archive mailbox are on different database...how about the searching takes place using outlook online/web... what is the process and does the user refer to both the different catalogs of each(where primary/archive mailbox resides) databases. Is this is the only way or we can do some modifications to the method of searching...?

• Charles Derber