Content Index is in Crawling state Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy

On Exchange 2010, Sp3

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-Mailboxdatabasecopystatus -server MAILBOX1.DOM.Local | fl Name, *Index*


Name                     : EXDB2\MAILBOX1
ContentIndexState        : Crawling
ContentIndexErrorMessage :


from looking at the message from the command by running Get-mailboxdatabaseCopyStatus 

Crawling state is where Exchange Search indexes mailboxes in the database. The status remains Crawling until all mailboxes in the database have been indexed. After all mailboxes in the databases have been indexed, Exchange Search changes the status of the database to Notification.

so wait untill Crawling notifications changes to Healthy state
but what happen if the Crawling is been running for days and no status change. Check the event log and find any thing related with search.

Last resort, Stop the "Microsoft Search (Exchange)" Service and delete the Catalogue file from the location C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Mailbox\AMBX1-2\CatalogData-8e5f65e1-26f6-4c7e-80d4-389b6c62ce18-9ef437c4-3229-4afd-a55d-cfd1637cfde4

please note : AMBX1-2\CatalogData-8e5f65e1-26f6-4c7e-80d4-389b6c62ce18-9ef437c4-3229-4afd-a55d-cfd1637cfde4 

AMBX1-2 is the name of the Database and CatalogData-8e5f65e1-26f6-4c7e-80d4-389b6c62ce18-9ef437c4-3229-4afd-a55d-cfd1637cfde4  is the name of the Catalog data name which may be differ in your environment.

from the user's Prespective, they will find difficulty getting search result in OWA. In Outlook, if they are in Cached mode, then old query will find the result for newer query it will take time until Content Index State is in Healthy state.


Now, "Content Index State" is in Healthy state, to update to passive node, you can run these two commands

Option 1
Reseed the catalog from a specific server (EMS)
C:\>Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity DB1\MBX1 -SourceServer MBX2 -CatalogOnly

Option 2
Reseed the catalog from any server (for Active node) (EMS)
C:\>Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity “databasename\servername” -CatalogOnly


If you want to activate Mailbox Database to another server and unable to mount due to Catalog Index error or INDEXing is disable then 
User the below Powershell command

C:\>Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase <DatabaseName> -ActivateOnServer <TargetServerName> -SkipClientExperienceChecks