In this post, we cover how to resolve Big Funnel indexing issues in Exchange Server 2019 for good. Since the release of Exchange Server 2019 there have been many reported issues and temporary resolutions to the not so stable, new mailbox indexing method named Big Funnel, or ‘Bug Funnel.
Previous resolutions to this issue included migrating mailboxes to a new mailbox database and even constantly running the Big Funnel mailbox assistant. Both of which were either not feasible in production environments or were a waste of time, only providing a temporary fix.
New Permanent Fix for Big Funnel Indexing Issues
Currently, when big funnel attempts to index an email, if the indexing of that email fails, which more often than not, fails, it will not retry to index that email, essentially marking it as a lost cause.
Our goal is to ensure, if the first attempt at indexing the email fails, that it continues to retry the indexing until it succeeds. That is exactly what we are doing by running the following piece of code in the Exchange Shell on your server.
New-SettingOverride -Name "Big Funnel Permanent Retry" -Component "BigFunnel"
-Section "BigFunnelFailedItemsQuerySettings"
-Parameters @("ExcludePermanentFailures=false")
-Reason "Re-Index Messages" -MinVersion "15.2.922.7" -MaxVersion "15.2.986.22"
The above will create a new override named Big Funnel Permanent Retry. Within this override the ExcludePermantentFailures parameter is set to false, forcing each failure to retry until it succeeds.
Check mailbox indexing status in Exchange Server 2019
Now you have run the above command you can next check on the indexing status of your mailboxes. Of course you need to allow a little time for the indexing to take place, and this will depend on the size of your mailboxes. I suggest waiting at least 24/48 hours to see significant improvement.
To check the indexing status you will need to run the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet:
Get-MailboxStatistics %user% | fl BigFunnel*The 2 attributes you should review are:
- BigfunnelNotIndexedSize
- BigfunnelNotIndexedCount
The above attribution will allow you to determine if indexing for this mailbox has completely recovered or significantly improved.
If you want to list ALL mailboxes that have an indexing issue you can run the following command:
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | ? {$_.BigfunnelNotIndexedCount -ge "1"} | ft DisplayName,BigfunnelNotIndexedCountThis will return a list of all mailboxes with at least 1 mailbox item that has not been indexed. Hopefully after a short while from running the above Big Funnel Indexing issue permanent resolution, all mailboxes should be up to date.
Summary
Thank you for taking the time to read my post, it is a pleasure to share with you a resolution to a problem that has been a real bugbear for me. If you found this helpful please ensure you sign up to our mailing list to get notified whenever a new post is released.
Hi,
check please command to display all mailbox that have an indexing issue.
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | ? {$_.BigfunnelNotIndexedCount -ge “1”} | ft DisplayName,BigfunnelNotIndexedCount
Hi! is the command not working as expected for you
Yeah, this command does not work. I tried playing with the Syntax, no dice though.
Sorry about that, was missing a PIPE and ?
Try
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | ? {$_.BigfunnelNotIndexedCount -ge “1”} | ft DisplayName,BigfunnelNotIndexedCount
The original command is not working on my Exchange 2019 Version 15.2 (Build 1118.7). It doesn’t expect the 2-4 lines of code, and leaves me at the double >>
Any ideas?
Hi Geof, when copying out the command, past it is a notepad and remove any line breaks so it is continuous and try again!