Exchange 2013 Outlook and OWA Search Does Not Work

As with all previous versions of OWA, Exchange 2013 has a search function that is above the mail column as seen below.

I came across an issue recently where if you did a search in OWA 2013, no results would be show, no matter what information I used as the search keywords. No matter what no search results where found. In Exchange 2013 , the search index is stored with the Mailbox store where the users are located. To resolve this issue and build the OWA 2013  and the Exchange search index again we needed to do the following. This error may also occur withOutlook clients that are not in cached mode.

1) Stop Service

 navigate to services stop the Microsoft Exchange Search & Microsoft Exchange Search Host Controller service.

2) Locate User Mailbox Database.

Once done locate the folder on your server where the Mailbox database is where the user is trying  to search from. For example mine is here.

C:\Program Files >Microsoft > Exchange Server > V15 > Mailbox > Mailbox Database 1403936621

If you are unsure where the the mailbox database is use the command below from power-shell.

Get-MailboxDatabase "yourmailboxdatabase" |fl name,*path*

Once the path is located you will find a folder name with a long “GUID” and the word Single on the end.

3) Rename this folder .old.

We then need to start the Microsoft Exchange Search service again, The server will now begin to rebuild its search index.

Give it plenty of time to rebuild then issue the command below and make sure the status of Content Index Status is seen as healthy.

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus

As seen below, if it says healthy try your search and you should see that your search results now appear in Outlook and OWA 2013.