Last Reviewed:  April 13, 2023

Error: File Indexer Has Stopped Working

This error only applies if you're using FileCenter Professional and you use FileCenter's dtSearch (formerly called Advanced) search engine and indexing.

Cause

We've only seen error this a handful of times over the years, but every time it had the same cause: a corrupt file crashed the indexer.

Solution

You have to find the corrupt file and remove it from your cabinet. Tracking the file down can be a bit of a pain, but it's doable.

The first thing you have to do is figure out which cabinet the file's in:

  1. Go to the "Cabinets" button on the main toolbar > "Indexing"
  2. Put a check mark next to one cabinet
  3. Make sure it's set to "Incremental Index"
  4. Click "Start Indexer"

Now wait and see if the indexer crashes. If it doesn't, that cabinet's fine. Move on to the next one.

Once the indexer crashes, start it again. This time, you have to watch the stream of files come across the display. It moves fast, so you may have to do this multiple times.

Once a file displays, it was successful. So it's actually the next file that crashes the indexer. But be aware, this is an incremental index, so the bad file might not be adjacent to the last good file. In fact, it might even be in a different directory. But you should be able to hunt it down based on the file modification date/time.

Once you think you've found the bad file, move it out of the cabinet and run the indexer again. There may be more than one. But eventually you should be able to get the indexer to stop crashing.

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