Journal Index Failed

What event log entries do you have on the EV server

The error in the logs will help us direct you as to how to correct it

Event ID: 7264
 
Error:     The AltaVista dataset file is missing.   [0xc0041c7d]
Reference: CAltaVistaIndex/OAVI/ie
Index:     17242ADB6EA986A4BA55933158E063E741110000vaultsite.sisk.com/Volume:154 (Journal HO Cluster)
Info:      I:\VaultIndex
           17242ADB6EA986A4BA55933158E063E741110000vaultsite.sisk.com_8875309
           

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://evevent.symantec.com/rosetta/showevent.asp

and

Event ID: 7264

Abnormal error occurred
 
Error:     The AltaVista index is not open   [0xc0041c64]
Reference: ST/TR/gs
Index:     17242ADB6EA986A4BA55933158E063E741110000vaultsite.sisk.com/Volume:154 (Journal HO Cluster)
Info:      
           
           

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://evevent.symantec.com/rosetta/showevent.asp

The first error seems to indicate that the files are missing because you tried to rebuild the index

Do you have a backup of the index? If yes I would stop the services and restore the index from tape as my first step seeing as you already have tried to rebuild. Lets first restore the last healthy index you have

This is a Journal with over 9,300,000 indexes it took almost 2 weeks to rebuild and I am not to sure when I last had a healthy index.

Before the failure when did you last get a good backup? Use that backup. Instead of rebuilding you restore then after restarting the services in the EV server you get the warning about items missing from the index. At this stage you do a repair to repopulate the missing items

BTW what version of EV are you using? and what was the first error you got in the event logs when the index first failed

if dataset file is missing then you have no choice but to rebuild unfortunately. where are the files located? if they're on a NAS or a netapp, don't forget to take off opportunistic locking

Also, you said "This is a Journal with over 9,300,000 indexes it took almost 2 weeks" do you mean 9.3 million items?

If you are not EV 8 you might consider setting the AVSMaxLoc registry key to keep the volumes smaller.  I recommend either 500 million or 1 Billion depending on your Discovery needs. 

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/290660.htm


edit--Correction Note:  Starting with versions 7.0 SP3 and 2007 SP2 AVSMaxloc is now defaulted to 1 billion. Setting AVSMaxloc through the registry is no longer recommended or required.

Also if the rebuild is failing for some reason it would be good to set the poisonpill setting to allow the rebuild to continue even if errors are found then you can go back later and addressed the failed items. 

be careful with poisonpill though because that would suggest you may have more endemic issues to look at at that you shouldnt ignore

Agreed

It just allows you to get the index rebuilt then you need to address the failed items