Search Index degraded, index reset never completes

Question

I cannot for the life of me get search services running on a new server.

When I open up the service administration web panel for search it shows a yellow exclamation mark on the Index.

PS> Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication $ssa -Detailed -Text
Name      : IndexComponent1
State     : Degraded
State     : List of degraded cells: Cell:IndexComponent1-SP3cfb64578250I.0.0;
Partition : 0
Host      : osl-jz-sp01

Name      : Cell:IndexComponent1-SP3cfb64578250I.0.0
State     : Degraded
State     : (Secondary index cell)
Primary   : False
Partition : 0

Name  : Partition:0
State : Degraded
State :
Degraded cells: Cell:IndexComponent1-SP3cfb64578250I.0.0;

PS > Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication $ssa -HealthReport -Component IndexComponent1 -Text
num_fields[SP3cfb64578250]                    : 671 [Info]
num_global_crawled_properties[SP3cfb64578250] : 1111 [Info]
num_global_mappings[SP3cfb64578250]           : 409 [Info]
num_overlays                                  : 0 [Info]
no_fastserver_health[SP3cfb64578250.I.0.0]    : No fastserver plugin [Warning]

Steps done so far (they didn't help):

• Cleared the SP Config cache (https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/ede11fc6-59a7-47be-893d-dc1ea4c88879/cant-reset-index-sharepoint-2013). Everything seems normal after restarting the SP timer service, the XML files are recreated and config.ini goes back to the same integer as before.
• Deleted the SP index data (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kristopherloranger/archive/2014/09/26/sharepoint-2013-on-prem-reset-index-stuck-resolution.aspx). I can see that it recreates the store after starting the search service again, so it would appear that permissions are working.
• Initiated a index reset through the central administration (sits at "We're working on it" until it times out. Done the same thing through PowerShell and it just sits there for an hour without giving any error mesages).

After trying the steps above the search status is "Paused for:External request, Index reset". The pause was initiated when the database(s) were renamed as per the technet article. The index reset was initiated by me.

I have tried using ULSViewer to dig further, but to be frank the output is a bit overwhelming.. I'm not really sure what to look for (or more specifically what to filter for).

Event log on the server seems normal. I can see informational messages about the index being reset, but never any messages about it completing the index reset. No idea if that should happen, either.

Environment details:

• New 2012 R2 + SP 2013 installation
• Different logical disk for search data
• Databases are hosted on a remote SQL 2014 server and renamed to avoid GUID's

Answer 1

We had this exact same problem. This post is what worked for us, without having to recreate components like some will tell you to do.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kristopherloranger/archive/2014/09/26/sharepoint-2013-on-prem-reset-index-stuck-resolution.aspx

Hope it works for you!