Does it seem like your IDOL server gets stuck frequently, and your users are upset that their searches are not returning the correct documents and they can never find anything? Here are a few tricks to ease the pain you may have been experiencing with your IDOL server.
When you reboot the IDOL server, stop all the IDOL services. When IDOL is installed, it creates nifty batch files that stop and start the IDOL services. Shortcuts to those files should be placed on your desktop. (I recommend the public desktop, so anyone who logs into the IDOL server has easy access to them. I would place a shortcut to the IDOL browser there as well.) When you are ready to reboot the IDOL server, run the Stop Services batch file. This should stop all the services. (I say, “Should,†because sometimes they get hung up and don’t actually stop.) After stopping the services, open the Task Manager and confirm that none of the processes are running. If there are any running, end them and then verify in the Services Manager that the services have stopped. Once you have done these things, reboot that server.
If the virus exclusions are not set correctly, that also could cause your IDOL server to get stuck. I have seen an IDOL server that was correctly shut down, but every time it was rebooted it would get stuck and stop indexing. It turned out that the virus exclusions weren’t all set, and that caused a problem. The Indexer service directories and the directories where the index data is stored should all be excluded from the antivirus. If IDOL is installed to E:Program FilesAutonomyIndexer, then this directory should be excluded. If you have multiple content engines on different drives, then those directories all need to be excluded as well.
One last thing, though it’s unlikely you’ll run into this: the time service needs to be running correctly. If the time service is off, you will see a log of indexing problems.
Hopefully these tips will help keep your IDOL server running smoothly and limit the number of indexing issues you experience.
