Windows 11 Indexing is paused

Anonymous
2022-01-13T06:55:55+00:00

What the hell is up with Windows 11 and the indexing being paused?

I was told by customer help to rebuild, which I did. And it took forever to index a few thousand files (because "indexing is paused") and was still not finished when...

Yesterday, windows took it upon itself to start rebuilding without discussing it with me first, and now I am back at square one - its taking like a bazillion years because "indexing is paused".

All search results return as not found !!!!!!!!!!

Does anybody know how to fix this ****?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

97 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2022-09-27T13:30:31+00:00

    this is fantastic , really appreciate , it works !

    after trying two days online, only this solution works !

    So far, this workaround has worked for me for the past month-

    1. Bring up the “Edit group policy” control panel by typing ‘group’ in the search bar.
    2. Enable 'Disable indexer backoff':

    Image

    1. Disable 'Prevent indexing Microsoft Office Outlook':

    Image

    1. Disable 'Prevent indexing when running on battery power to conserve energy'':

    Image

    For me, I believe all three were necessary to work around this problem.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2022-08-27T04:01:05+00:00

    Disabling indexing for Outlook seems to have worked for me, the others were not required

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-08-24T14:03:12+00:00

    The July 1 2022 Edit group policy post worked for me.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-08-20T16:26:34+00:00

    Still looking for a definitive answer.

    My situation:

    environment-

    HP Pavillion Desktop

    Intel i5-11400

    12GB RAM

    256GB SSD (C:) 68GB used, remainder is free

    Windows 11 Home (fully patched)

    Rebuilding the search index is taking many days with the desktop computer mostly idle, and is still only 30% complete

    The Indexing Options window almost always displays "Indexing is paused."

    I have restarted the workstation and restarted the indexing service

    I have run the "Searching and Indexing" troubleshooter with no reported issues.

    Further, I have only a few search locations to be indexed (see below for more details).

    Folders on internal SSD (C:)

    RJF\ 2.67MB/5 folders/4 files

    Under Users: User "jadeh" 

    .moneydance\			70.6MB/13 folders/599 files 

Desktop\disclosure\_pic\	18.5MB/3 folders/6 Files

    Folder on external Seagate HDD

    life\ 315GB/25,679 folders/338,603,941 files

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2022-07-29T22:35:53+00:00

    Greg,

    I have attempted your steps several times now by restarting the index. I have also rebuilt the index several times. Additionally, I have tried to reset Windows back to factory (without deleting my files) and have run the troubleshooter several times. None of these are working. How can I get this resolved? I cannot search outlook, windows, or alike.

    Each time I rebuild it or restart services, it will work for a while and then pause again. Thoughts? Thanks.

    Luke

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments