Search stops working in Outlook 2007

Question

Environment:

Vista 2007 (final)

Office 2007 (final)

 

Outlook 2007 Search was working fine for 2 weeks and then it stopped for no apparent reason.  I made sure that my folders were indexed.  I rebuilt the indexes twice.  I rebooted (obviously). Nothing works.  I have not tried re-installing Office but I really prefer not to.

 

The following warning appears in the Application logs :

 

Log Name:          Application
Source:                 Microsoft-Windows-Search
Event ID:              3036
Task Category:  Gatherer
Context:              Windows Application, SystemIndex Catalog

Details:  

The specified address was excluded from the index. The site path rules may have to be modified to include this address.   (0x80040d07)

Sometimes the details are this instead

Details:

                The per-user filter pool could not be found.   (0x80040dba)

 

I have searched around and dozens of people have had this problem but no on has posted a working solution.

 

Any advice?

Answer 1

I have the same problem. Did you find a solution?

Answer 2

I still have not found the simple fix for this but I'm sure it's out there.  Not one of my postings yielded a response so the fix must be elusive.

After much frustration, I uninstalled and re-installed Office 2007.  This fixed the problem and, much to my surprise, I did NOT have to redo all of my Outlook settings.  Outlook came back up with all of my email accounts and pst files intact.  I'm not sure why these settings did not get lost during the uninstall but I'm happy they did not.

My search is now working thanks to the re-install.

Answer 3

I have tried all the suggested fixes I could locate in these formums and on the web(rebuilding etc) but still the search doesn't work in outlook 2007 - what is going on? I really need the ability to search through my email - if a search is not found soon i will uninstall office 2007 and go back to 2003.

There is a real issue with this as no search (like the obne in 2003) is available if you don't use the desktop search method - i also tried to make express my default email and use that but i couldn't import anything into express - this is a real mess!!!!!!

Answer 4

Repairing Office 2007 worked for me.

Answer 5

Before I re-installed Office 2007 I had to revert to using the email search tool that came with Google Desktop.  Googles search works great but it does not bring up results in a standard Outlook window which means I can't drag them or manipulate them the way I wanted to. 

I wish MS would have retained the ability to just do an old fashion 2003 style search.  Even though it's not indexed (and slow), at least it worked.

 

 

 

Answer 6

Reparing worked!!!

 

Thanks very much, saved me a lot of hassle

Answer 7

There is an issue if you install any Office 2003 component on top of Office 2007 which breaks email indexing. This usually happens for example, if you install FrontPage from Office 2003 after you installed Office 2007. The Office 2003 install will delete MAPI registry keys that is required for email indexing. Reinstalling/repairing Office 2007 will repair this issue. The upcoming WDS 3.01 release will identify this issue and workaround it if detected. It does not repair the problem and other application that depend on Outlook automation will still be effected.

Answer 8

That is exactly what I did - I installed frontpage 2003.

Answer 9

That must be it.  I installed visio 2003 shortly after Office 2007.  Thanks Eric. 

It's good to know that the problem was not just random.

 

 

Answer 10

Hi there,

I am having the same problem, and I installed Frontpage 2003 after Office 2007, but the repair of 2007 did not resolve my loss of search in OL2007.  Before I upgraded to Vista, I had this same problem occur.  I was only able to resolve it after a fresh install of x64 Vista.

Thanks

Answer 11

If it helps, once you have performed the repair on Office 2007 change the search options using the drop down menu next to the search magnifying glass. Untick your 'data file' on the top of the page and click on OK, restart outlook and go back in to the search options. This time tick the data file and restart outlook.

 

When outlook restarts it will reindex your mailbox and once that is complete the search will work.

 

Hope it helps.

Answer 12

I have been having severe problems with search items in Office 2007 and to my surprise unchecking the items I want search to use under under "Tools" - "Instant Search" - "Search Options" now I can find emails and contact items again. Unbelievable that a program like Google Desktop search is more reliable and works better than Microsofts own search tools. way to go Microsoft, you really screwed the pooch on this one!

Answer 13

By the way, if you ever see the following in your Applicaiton Event Log from Windows Search (event ID 3036):

The per-user filter pool could not be found.   (0x80040dba)

 

...you'll need to restart your computer.  Once this bug is hit, the indexer will be unable to index any e-mail until the machine is rebooted.  Unfortunately, any e-mails that Outlook tries to index while the indexer is in this state will not get indexed automatically even after rebooting.  Rebuilding your catalog after rebooting would allow Outlook to repush those items to get indexed once the indexer is back in a good state.  This is one bug that we're actively working to fix.

Answer 14

Could you please be a little bit more specific about what type of problems have you been experiencing?

Are you able to find some items but not others or are you simply not able to get any search results?

Are you seeing any error messages in Outlook when searching?

Can you check your Outlook Indexing Status (Outlook->Tools->Instant Search->Indexing Status) to see if your email has finished indexing?

Have you installed any Office 2003 App after installing Office 2007 as other customers reported to this thread?

Have you tried to rebuild your catalog from the Indexing Options in the Windows control panel?

 

Thanks,

-- Carlos

Answer 15

Hi, Carlos.

I see no one has responded to you, and since I had this exact same problem, I'll attempt to answer your questions.

My Outlook search feature (Office 2007) stopped working, immediately after I had installed Publisher 2003.  When I and the others say "stopped working," the effect experienced was as though the index had no items in it, so that when you tried to search for anything, anywhere, you'd always get the response "no items found."

So, no items were ever found.  No error messages.  Nothing out of the ordinary, except that not a single search result would ever be obtained.

This behavoir persisted over a month for me, until I found this message thread, "repaired" the Office 2007 installation with the install disk, unchecked the appropriate data files under "Search Options," rebooted Outlook, rechecked the data files under "Search Options," again rebooted Outlook.  Now, I'm a happy man.

I did not try to rebuild my caalog from the Indexing Options in the Windows control panel, only because I'm not that experienced with Windows Vista and did not see any instructions or advice on how to do this, when trying to troubleshoot the problem and reviewing the help docs in Outlook.

Thanks.  Larry.

Answer 16

I have the same problem.

Try restart "Windows Search" in services. This helps me.

Answer 17

 

Thanks, your recommendation worked perfectly for me.

Answer 18

You could also rebuild your index:

To rebuild your search catalog, do the following:

1. Exit Outlook.
   
2. In Microsoft Windows, click the Start button, and then click
   Control Panel.
   
3. Do one of the following:
   
   • Windows Vista   Click System
     Maintenance, and then click Indexing Options.
     

      Note   In Classic view, double-click Indexing Options.

     
     
   • Microsoft Windows XP   Under See
     Also, click Other Control Panel Options, and then click Indexing Options.
     

      Note   In Classic view, double-click Indexing Options.

   
   
4. Click Advanced.
   
5. Click Rebuild.
   
6. Restart Outlook.

Answer 19

Have you had any luck finding a solution??? My search tool in Outlook Contacts recently stopped working. I have had it over 1 year. 07 outlook is very problematic. There should be a total recall.

Answer 20

i've had several users here that have a similiar issue and now i've been struck with it.

Searching has worked fine until recently.  no changes have been made to any of the systems but search just stops working.
trying to rebuild the index just results in:
0 items indexed.
Indexing complete.

I've tried everything i've found on the net, this is different then the orignal post as no office 2003 items were installed.  search just stopped working.

Answer 21

I lost all my indexing also. I am running XP and using Outlook 2007.  I tried to rebuild my index going to the control panel, index options, and advanced

 

   Everything was gray except for Restore Defaults.  I click that, reboot and still nothing has changes.  I cannot get to the bebuilt button. 

 

   My index symbol says when it is visible say something about waiting on index status (it is not visible while I am writing this. 

 

I have tried repairing my Microsoft Enterprise, in my add/remove programs (under the control panel), Outlook does not show up. 

 

Any other ideas?

 

Answer 22

I had the same issues with the indexing, but I've never installed any Office 2003 products on this 2 month old laptop.  The repair did the trick.  Thanks everyone for your posts and help.

Answer 23

 

WOO HOO!!

That worked like a charm!

Thanks! I am sure you saved me hours of frustration!!

 

Answer 24

I have rebuilt my index and it's working fine now. Omar

 

Answer 25

I have tried all of the above, to no avail. The only solution I've found for this is to do a complete reinstall of the operating system from scratch. Is there any way to totally rip out Windows Search entirely and start again?

The problem I have is with the indexing of my ost, which works fine for a few weeks after a fresh install of the OS and applications and then it suddenly stops working and I can't find any correlation with errors or warnings in the event log or with anything I've changed to my setup.

Answer 26

FIXED!

I've been dealing with this indexing issue in Outlook search for months.  Did a re-install of Office, re-install of Vista, repair of Office, and even ran the ScanPST.exe file.  Everything fixes the search from that point BACKWARD, but going forward, new stuff doesn't get indexed.

So I learned I have support on Office.  Talked to India, and actually found the resolution.  From the TOOLS menu, choose INSTANT SEARCH > SEARCH OPTIONS.  Under "Indexing" UN-Check "Personal Folders" and "Archive Folders".  Exit Outlook and re-start Outlook.   Screen-shot here: http://innovativedatanet.com/outlook-search-index-fix.htm

It seems to me that this sets it back to the way search used to be before 07... it will search slower, but at least the results are accurate.  If it doesn't return results right away, just give it a minute, and it will speed up after a few searches. 

---

http://www.innovativedatanet.com

Answer 27

I use XP (fully updated) and Office 2007 (fully updated) and tried many of the above fixes and they did not work. I did not try re-installing the operating system, office, etc. However, what did work for me was downloading Windows Desktop Search 4 and attempting a re-install (which gave an error message) and then exiting out of the Windows Search icon (magnifying glass) which is in the icon tray in the lower right. Immediately after hitting "Exit" on this icon the indexing actually started working and then Instant Search started working as well. I have no idea if attempting to reinstall WDS4 had any affect on this or not and I did not uninstall before I did the reinstall. I hope this stays fixed.

Answer 28

yep. it helps!!!!
Thanks !!!!!!!!!

It ´s ubelievable how much people has to undertake to make the things work under the office 2007  :)

Answer 29

Hi, I have a similar but unique problem. I use XP pro and Outlook 2007, and everything worked fine until two weeks ago. Up until two weeks ago, every time I started my computer I would get a pop-up window asking something like, did I want 'archive my Outlook Express files/emails.' And I never even used Outlook Express! Anyway, I had had real problems with loss of data doing archives in the past with Outlook 2007, so I denied this Outlook Express pop-up every morning, that is until two weeks ago when I confused the gas pedal for the brakes. Good news is that I don't get that annoying pop-up any more, but the bad news is indexing has become only marginally functional. For example, in the past when I put in the end of an email address, such as logitech.com, I got back every email I had ever received or written to an employee at Logitech. Now when I do this search, I only get back recent emails.

I will try some of the above metioned fixes and let you know how it works, but I just thought I should metion the Outlook express outlook thing, since I didn't hear this mentioned above.

Answer 30

do you guys have outlook 2007 cached mode enabled as i cannot get it to index at all unless cache is enabled.

Answer 31

I'm not sure what cashed mode is, unless you're referring to Instant Search.  I was hoping with Vista SP2 it was going to be fixed...it worked for a few days, then once again, it stopped showing new messages.

---

http://www.innovativedatanet.com

Answer 32

Sorry cached exchange mode, this only seems to work if i have it enabled and working with exchange server, if its not enabled and user is on exchange it never seems to indexes

Answer 33

Yes, cached Exchange mode must be turned on... It will not index items on the Exchange server.
Cached mode saves a copy on your local machine, which can be indexed.

Answer 34

I had the same problem that was being discussed here. I read all the proposed solutions, rebuilding the search indexing, even I reinstalled Office 2007, and nothing did work till I read the coment from artdecorportraits , "unchecking the items I want search to use under under "Tools" - "Instant Search" - "Search Options" ", it did work for me. Thanks artdecorportraits

Answer 35

Armand-75 & Jason IDN, this isn't fixing the problem.  Jason, when you called India, they "got you off the phone" by having you disable the indexing.  This "seemed" to fix your problem, and it did in a way, it allowed you to search again.  But it didn't actually fix the indexing problem.  You are now searching "LIVE" when you type something and hit search.  This searches each time.  Indexing, what is not activated for you now, is when it already knows where each of these words in each of your emails are, and INSTANTLY pulls them up.

I use search all day every day.  I have tens of thousands of emails.  If I were to type something, hit search and wait for it to find those words, I would easily add an hour to my work day. 

Answer 36

There is an issue if you install any Office 2003 component on top of Office 2007 which breaks email indexing. This usually happens for example, if you install FrontPage from Office 2003 after you installed Office 2007. The Office 2003 install will delete MAPI registry keys that is required for email indexing. Reinstalling/repairing Office 2007 will repair this issue. The upcoming WDS 3.01 release will identify this issue and workaround it if detected. It does not repair the problem and other application that depend on Outlook automation will still be effected.

"Search results maybe incomplete because items are still being indexed. click here for more details." , HOW FIX THIS FUCKING BUG???? MY OUTLOOK 2007 ENTERPRISE IS FREEZES AND SEARCHING NOT WORKING AFTER LAST UPDATE! :@

PEOPLES, DON'T DOWNLOAD LATEST SP2 AND UPDATES!!!!

PEOPLES, DON'T DOWNLOAD LATEST SP2 AND UPDATES!!!!

PEOPLES, DON'T DOWNLOAD LATEST SP2 AND UPDATES!!!!

PEOPLES, DON'T DOWNLOAD LATEST SP2 AND UPDATES!!!!

PEOPLES, DON'T DOWNLOAD LATEST SP2 AND UPDATES!!!!

PEOPLES, DON'T DOWNLOAD LATEST SP2 AND UPDATES!!!!

Answer 37

maybe some folders are simply damaged? you may try the service of repair ms outlook, provided by other companies

Answer 38

My search utility stopped working all of a sudden. After trying all of these suggestions without success, I just reinstalled windows search 4.0 and it fixed it.

Answer 39

This is the only thing that worked for me: Basically, turning indexing off! My problems started when I tried installing the Office 2013 beta -- the one that says you can keep your existing Office installation.

Yes, you can keep it, but it will be messed up such that you have to repair it after you finally delete the 2013 beta!

This was my final cleanup issue. Went crazy trying to get indexing to work, using other advice in this thread. I'm theorizing that it was turned off before I installed the 2013 beta, and that the beta turned it back on.

Thanks Jason!

(Post that fixed it:
FIXED!

I've been dealing with this indexing issue in Outlook search for months.  Did a re-install of Office, re-install of Vista, repair of Office, and even ran the ScanPST.exe file.  Everything fixes the search from that point BACKWARD, but going forward, new stuff doesn't get indexed.

So I learned I have support on Office.  Talked to India, and actually found the resolution.  From the TOOLS menu, choose INSTANT SEARCH > SEARCH OPTIONS.  Under "Indexing" UN-Check "Personal Folders" and "Archive Folders".  Exit Outlook and re-start Outlook.   Screen-shot here: http://innovativedatanet.com/outlook-search-index-fix.htm

It seems to me that this sets it back to the way search used to be before 07... it will search slower, but at least the results are accurate.  If it doesn't return results right away, just give it a minute, and it will speed up after a few searches. 

---

http://www.innovativedatanet.com

Answer 40

Here you go, folks.

There are two possible solutions:

Disable Instant Search (Go back to Outlook 2002-2003 Style Search)

Rebuild the Search Index

Disabling is OK as a temporary solution but is not a real fix.

Answer 41

This is a Windows search problem:

1. Check if the service has been stopped......

Start >in the search box, type  services  > press Enter key > scroll to  Windows Search, click it >
under Status, it should say ................. Started
under Startup type, it should say ........ Automatic
If that is not what it says, right click on Windows Search > Properties ....
at Startup type, click the pointer and select Automatic
at Service Status, click Start
click OK when done.