General troubleshooting guide

ZFilter usually installs and works transparently, without any trouble or need for further effort or configuration.  If you have difficulty, try following the steps below.

If it doesn't seem to index the contents of any .ZIP files:

• Check to ensure that your server is correctly configured.
• Make sure that ZFilter is licensed: an evaluation license expires 30 days after installation.
• Try reinstalling ZFilter to check that it is installed and registered correctly.
• Use filtreg to check that ZFilter is registered as the filter for .ZIP files.
• Use filtdump to check that ZFilter is returning indexable text.

If it indexes some files but not others:

• Are the failed files very large?  If so, you should configure your server appropriately.
• Are the failed files all of a particular type and, if so, is are there known problems with indexing these (e.g. Acrobat, Microsoft Office).
• If you unzip the failed files manually, can the indexer index them? if not, use filtreg or filtdump to check that there is a filter installed for this file type, and that it is returning indexable text.
• Are the failed files password protected?  ZFilter cannot extract files that have been password protected.

How to configure your server to work with ZFilter

You should install ZFilter after installing your chosen server product.  Depending on the server in use, you may have to configure its indexer to recognize .ZIP archives and/or re-index its contents.  Brief instructions for each of the server platforms are given below:

SharePoint Portal Server 2001

In a server farm implementation where each SharePoint server performs a specialized role, ZFilter (and any other installable filters) should be installed on the SPS Indexing server(s).

For each workspace that will contain .ZIP files for indexing, you must change the workspace settings to include .ZIP as an allowable extension:

1. Use Windows Explorer to open the workspace as a web folder.
2. Open the Management folder.
3. Open the Content Sources folder.
4. Click Additional Settings.
5. Click File Types...
6. Make sure that .ZIP is in the list of included file types: if it is not, click Add to add it.
7. Repeat for all workspaces to be indexed.

Any files added or changed after this configuration change will be indexed using ZFilter. To index any files added earlier, you should perform a full update of the workspace indexes by right clicking each Content Source and choosing Start Full Update.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003

SharePoint V2 supports two different indexing methods: one used by SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and one used by Windows SharePoint Services (see Windows SharePoint Services, below).

In a server farm implementation where each SharePoint server performs a specialized role, ZFilter (and any other installable filters) should be installed on the SPS Indexing server(s).

To enable .ZIP indexing under SharePoint Portal Server 2003, all portals that will contain .ZIP files should be set to include .zip as an allowable extension:

1. On the Site Settings page, in the Manage Search Settings and Indexed Content section, click Configure search and indexing.
2. On the Configure search and indexing page, in the General Content Settings and Indexing Status, click Exclude or Include File Types.
3. Make sure that .zip is in the list of included file types: if it is not, click Add File Type to add it.

Any files added or changed after this configuration change will be indexed using ZFilter.  To index any files added earlier, you should perform a full update of each content source:

1. On the Site Settings page, in the Manage Search Settings and Indexed Content section, click Configure search and indexing.
2. On the Configure search and indexing page, in the Other Content Sources section, click Manage content sources.
3. On the Manage Content Sources page, hover the cursor over the name of the first content source to be updated, and then click the arrow that appears.
4. On the menu that appears, click Full Update.
5. Repeat for any other content sources to be updated.

Windows SharePoint Services

When Windows SharePoint Services is installed standalone (i.e. without SharePoint Portal Server) it uses SQL Server 2000's full-text indexing feature for full text indexing.  Note that Windows SharePoint Services can only index documents if it is installed either with SharePoint Portal Server or with SQL Server 2000.

To enable .ZIP indexing for Windows SharePoint Services using SQL Server, install ZFilter on the SQL Server computer, and follow instructions for SQL Server 2000, below.  You should rebuild catalogs for the Windows SharePoint Services content database for each site collection.  The content database will have the name you assigned when creating the top level site or, if you left the database name blank, it will have been assigned a default name of the format STS_<servername>_nnnnnnnnnnnn.

Exchange 2000

Once ZFilter is installed, Exchange Server will automatically index .ZIP file attachments added to any store on that server, including Mailbox and Public Folder stores.  To index file attachments added before ZFilter was installed, you should repopulate the full-text indexes on the stores that contain them.  For example, for a simple server configuration, you would do the following:

1. Start the Exchange System Manager.
2. Open Administrative Groups – First Administrative Group.
3. Open the folder corresponding to your server.
4. Open the First Storage Group folder.
5. Right click Mailbox Store and choose Start Full Population.
6. Repeat for the Public Folder Store and any other stores on the server.

SQL Server 2000

Once ZFilter is installed, the SQL Server full-text indexing service will automatically index any .ZIP file attachments it finds.  To index file attachments added before ZFilter was installed, you should rebuild full-text index catalogs on the databases that contain them, as follows:

1. Start the SQL Server Enterprise Manager.
2. Open Microsoft SQL Servers.
3. Open the group containing your server (by default this is SQL Server Group).
4. Open the folder corresponding to your server (by default this is Local).
5. Open a full-text indexed database containing .ZIP files to be indexed,
6. Right click Full-text Catalogs and choose Rebuild All Catalogs.
7. Repeat for other databases as appropriate.

Indexing Service (Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003)

This service indexes content for Internet Information Server (IIS5 and IIS6) and SharePoint Team Services.  After ZFilter is installed, Indexing Service will automatically index .ZIP files, since this becomes a registered file extension on the system.  To index any files saved before ZFilter was installed, you should perform a full rescan of the relevant directories:

1. Start Control Panel.
2. Click Administrative Tools.
3. Under Services and Applications, open the Indexing Service folder.
4. Open the first catalog listed (by default there is one catalog, System; if IIS is installed there will be also be a Web catalog).
5. Click Directories.
6. For each directory listed, right click it and choose All Tasks: Rescan (Full).
7. Repeat for all other catalogs.

Site Server 3.0

In a server farm implementation where each Site Server computer performs a specialized role, ZFilter (and any other installable filters) should be installed on the Site Server Catalog Build server(s).

Set all catalogs that will contain .ZIP files to include .zip as an allowable extension for indexing:

1. From the Microsoft Site Server menu, choose Administration.
2. Choose Site Server Service Admin (MMC).
3. Open Search.
4. Open your server.
5. Open Catalog Build Server.
6. Right click the first catalog you want to use.
7. Choose Properties.
8. Click the File Types tab.
9. If necessary, add .zip as a file type to be crawled, then click OK. From now on, any .ZIP files added to the catalog will be indexed using ZFilter.
10. To rebuild the index for the catalog, ensuring that previously-added .ZIP files are indexed, right click on the catalog name, then click Start Build.
11. Repeat for any other catalogs which contain .ZIP archives to be indexed.

Index Server on Windows NT4

This service indexes content for Internet Information Server (IIS4).  After ZFilter is installed, Index Server will automatically index .ZIP files.  To index any files saved before ZFilter was installed, you should perform a full rescan of the relevant folders:

1. From the Windows NT4.0 Option Pack Menu, choose Microsoft Index Server.
2. Click Index Server Manager.
3. Open the Index Server on Local Machine folder.
4. Open the first catalog listed (by default there are two catalogs, System and ContentManagement).
5. Open Directories.
6. For each folder listed, right click it and choose Rescan.
7. Repeat for all other catalogs.

Problems indexing Adobe Acrobat files

Adobe PDF IFilter 5.0 is an apartment threaded filter: apartment threaded filters behave anomalously on some server platforms where the indexing server is multithreaded.

Most products use the Microsoft Search service - this includes SharePoint Portal Server 2001, Exchange Server and SQL Server 2000 (hence also Windows SharePoint Services).  The Microsoft Search Service can be configured to run single threaded, and this should eliminate the problem.  To do this, set the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Search\Gathering Manager\RobotThreadsNumber to 1.  Note that single threaded indexing will be slower than multithreaded.

For SharePoint Portal Server 2003, the procedure is the same, but the corresponding registry value is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SPSSearch\Gathering Manager\RobotThreadsNumber.

Under Windows XP you may see similar problems with apartment threaded filters and Indexing Service (used by IIS5 and IIS6): there is currently no official Microsoft-supported resolution for this.  The following workaround for the PDF IFilter is based on a suggestion by Andrew Cencini, however it involves deliberately setting the threading model to a value not supported by Adobe - use it at your own risk:

1. Change the registry value HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{4C904448-74A9-11d0-AF6E-00C04FD8DC02}\InprocServer32\ThreadingModel from Apartment to Both
2. Double click the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\DLLsToRegister value, and then click Modify.
3. Remove the entry corresponding to pdffilt.dll from the list.
4. Using the Services Control Panel, restart Indexing Service,
5. Perform a rescan (as described above)

Problems indexing Microsoft Office documents

Office documents are indexed by the Microsoft Office filter, which is installed as part of the Windows operating system.  Indexing problems are almost certainly caused by compatibility problem between the documents and the version of the Microsoft Office filter on the server.

Early versions of the Microsoft Office filter will not extract text from Office XP documents.  To be compatible, the filter (%windir%\system32\offilt.dll) should be dated 4 May 2001 or later.  For best results, apply the latest Microsoft Office Service Pack to your server: this will upgrade to the latest version of the Office filter.

Conversely, documents saved with early versions of Office may not be indexed by the Office filter: see Microsoft Knowledgebase article 318326 for further information.

Problems indexing large .ZIP files

The Microsoft Search service, used by SQL Server, Exchange and SharePoint Portal Server, limits the time it will allow a filter to run: for most purposes, the default (120 seconds) is adequate.  On the other hand, if you are indexing large .ZIPs containing many archived files, the default may not be enough.

To increase the timeout, set the registry value(s) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Search\1.0\Gathering Manager\Applications\<appname>\DataTimeout to a larger value.  The <appname> corresponds to the following:

Note that the key name for Exchange depends on the servername; for SQL Server it is set separately for each SQL Server instance on the server.

For SharePoint Portal Server 2003, each portal has its own separate set of settings under a registry key identified by GUID; the registry value is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SPSSearch\1.0\Gathering Manager\Applications\<portalGUID>\DataTimeout.  The easiest way to tell which key corresponds to which portal is to look at the DisplayName value under each: this shows the name of the portal.

For Indexing Service and Index Server, the corresponding setting is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\DaemonResponseTimeout; this setting is in minutes, rather than seconds, and has a default of 5 minutes.

Is ZFilter compatible with antivirus products?

ZFilter is compatible with antivirus products installed on the server.  Note that most virus checkers are capable of scanning .ZIP archives for viruses.  If you are using such a virus checker, you may wish to exclude ZFilter's temporary folder path (typically %systemdir%\temp\~ZFilter) from virus scanning - this will improve indexer performance by preventing indexed files from being virus checked twice. 

What types of file can ZFilter index?

ZFilter extracts files from .ZIP archives; for each file, it invokes the filter registered for that file type.  In theory, it should work with any well-behaved filter, however we do test filters for compatibility.

The list of tested filters is updated as we test new ones: click here for the current list.

Error message on logon: "cisvc.exe - DLL initialization failed"

The evaluation period for an unlicensed copy of ZFilter has expired.

The full error message would be similar to "cisvc.exe - DLL initialization failed initialization of the dynamic link library c:\winnt\system32\zfilter.dll failed. the process is terminating abnormally"

Either remove ZFilter from the control panel, or go to the Purchase page to buy a license: the new license can be added using the License ZFilter link on the 4-Share program menu.

How to test filters to see if they are working

Microsoft provide a variety of filter testing tools free-of-charge as part of the Platform SDK: these are described in the MSDN Library documentation.  The most generally useful ones are:

FiltReg.exe - lists the filters registered on your computer, and is helpful for identifying filter registration problems.

FiltDump.exe - filters a specified file using the appropriate registered filter, and shows the filter output.  This program is also supplied on the SharePoint Portal Server CD (in the \Support\Tools directory) - see ToolsHowTo for further information.

FiltDump.exe reports values of "unprintable type"

Microsoft's FiltDump filter test utility can only display text values.  Many filters return values of other types such as numbers and datetimes: FiltDump always reports these as "unprintable type".

Can ZFilter index archives which have a filename extension other than 'ZIP'?

You can manually register ZFilter as an indexing handler for any extension as follows, replacing 'EXT' with the extension you wish to register:

1. Start regedit and look for the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.EXT - if there isn't one, create it.
2. Under this key, create a subkey with the name PersistentHandler
3. Set the Default (REG_SZ) value for this key to {8B0E5E73-3C30-11d1-8C0D-00AA00C26CD4}

Note: if the PersistentHandler key already exists and has a different value from the one above, this implies that another program is already registered as a handler for this extension: changing the setting may compromise the functionality of that program.

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