Automatic index updates

Article: dts0123

dtSearch Desktop uses the Windows Task Scheduler to schedule automated index updates. To update an index automatically:

1. Click the Schedule Updates button in Index Manager.

2. Click New Task to create a new index update task. (You can also click Modify Task to change a pre-existing task or click Delete Task to remove a task.)

3. Select the indexes to be updated from the list, and check the indexing actions to be scheduled.

4. Click the Next >> button. The indexing task will open in the Windows Task Scheduler. Click the Schedule tab to set up the schedule for this task.

Scheduled Tasks have to run with a user account that is designated when the task is created.

Troubleshooting Steps

The most common sources of problems with scheduled tasks are:

- The user account has the wrong password or no password, so the task will not run at all.

- The index location or the "What to index" list for the index references a network location using a mapped drive letter instead of a UNC path.

- The index location or the "What to index" list for the index references a network location that the user account is not allowed to access.

Symptom: Scheduled task never runs

Check the user account for the task. After you schedule a task in dtSearch Indexer, click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks to open your list of scheduled tasks. Right-click on the task you created in dtSearch Indexer and select "Run Now". This will test whether the user name and password are set up correctly.

If the message "Could not start" appears, the user name and password may be incorrect. Double-click the task to open its properties and verify the user name and password.

Sometimes Task Scheduler forgets a password after a while, so if a task was working for a long time, the password might need to be re-entered.

A password is required for any scheduled task. If your user account does not have a password, Windows will not allow it to run a Scheduled Task.

Symptom: Scheduled task runs but the index is never updated
Symptom: Scheduled task shows return code "8f"

Check that the user account for the task has a dtSearch folder. Start dtSearch Desktop and click Help > dtSearch Diagnostic Tools. A dialog box with a list of dtSearch-related log files will appear. Look for a file named dtSearch_Errors_T.log and if you find it, click on it and click the Edit button to open the file. This file should provide information about why dtSearch was unable to run in the scheduler. Usually this is due to a mismatch between the user account assigned to the task and the account used to set up the dtSearch indexes.

If the dtSearch_Errors_T.log file indicates that access was denied to the index, the user account associated with the task does not have sufficient permissions to update the index. To fix the problem, either change the user account or change the folder permissions on the folder containing the index.

If the dtSearch_Errors_T.log file indicates that the index was not found, you may have referenced a network index using a mapped drive letter. In some cases, mapped drive letters do not work when a scheduled task runs, so indexes must be referenced using a UNC path.

If the user account for a task has never been used to run dtSearch interactively, dtSearch will not have any registry settings when run as that user, so it will not be able to update the index. To prevent this from happening, log in with the user name and password assigned to the dtSearch task, and run dtSearch Indexer to verify that the dtSearch indexes are visible to the user and that the user has the correct dtSearch folder.

Symptom: Scheduled task runs, and the index is updated, but the index is empty

This can occur if you are indexing mapped network drives and the scheduled task runs when you are not logged on. Drive mappings may not be available when a scheduled task runs even if you set up the task to log in with your user name and password. To index network resources in a scheduled task,

(1) Set up the folders to index as UNC paths rather than mapped drive letters. In the dtSearch Index Manager, you can convert a mapped drive to a UNC path by right-clicking on the path and selecting "Make UNC" from the menu that appears.

(2) Verify that the user name and password for the scheduled task will enable the task to access the network resources.