Sql-server – How to get more details on a full text catalog error

I was wondering how SQL Server proceeds while rebuilding the fulltext catalog.

From BOL :

When you REBUILD a fulltext catalog, SQL Server rebuilds the entire catalog. When a catalog is rebuilt, the existing catalog is deleted and a new catalog is created in its place. All the tables that have full-text indexing references are associated with the new catalog. Rebuilding resets the full-text metadata in the database system tables.

I would suggest you to look into REORGANIZE depending on the fragment counts as described in my answer for Reorganize full text catalog is offline or online?

You might try scripting it out to see if you get a different behaviour. This simple example runs in under a minute on my local SQL 2005 instance:

USE master
GO

SET NOCOUNT ON
GO

IF EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'fullTextDemo3' )
BEGIN
    ALTER DATABASE fullTextDemo3 SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
    DROP DATABASE fullTextDemo3
END
GO

IF NOT EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'fullTextDemo3' )
CREATE DATABASE [fullTextDemo3]
GO

ALTER DATABASE fullTextDemo3 SET RECOVERY SIMPLE
GO

USE fullTextDemo3
GO

CREATE TABLE dbo.nearnessTest (
    rowId           INT IDENTITY,
    keywords        VARCHAR(MAX) NOT NULL,
    notes           VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,

    CONSTRAINT PK_nearnessTest PRIMARY KEY ( rowId )
)
GO


INSERT dbo.nearnessTest
--SELECT TOP 270000 m1.[text], ''
SELECT m1.[text], ''
FROM sys.messages m1
--  CROSS JOIN sys.messages m2
WHERE m1.language_id = 1033
  --AND m2.language_id = 1033
GO

-- Create the catalog
IF NOT EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM sys.fulltext_catalogs WHERE name = N'ftc_List3' ) 
CREATE FULLTEXT CATALOG ftc_List3
GO

-- Create the full-text index
CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.nearnessTest (keywords) KEY INDEX PK_nearnessTest ON ftc_List3 WITH CHANGE_TRACKING MANUAL -- CHANGE_TRACKING OFF, NO POPULATION
GO

SELECT 'before' ft, * FROM sys.fulltext_indexes
GO

DECLARE @i INT 
SET @i = 0

WHILE EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM sys.fulltext_indexes WHERE has_crawl_completed = 0 )
BEGIN

        SELECT outstanding_batch_count, *
        FROM sys.dm_fts_index_population
        WHERE database_id = DB_ID()

        --SELECT *
        --FROM sys.dm_fts_outstanding_batches
        --WHERE database_id = DB_ID()

    WAITFOR DELAY '00:00:05'

    SET @i = @i + 1
    IF @i > 60 BEGIN RAISERROR( 'Too many loops!', 16, 1 ) BREAK END

END

SELECT 'after' ft, * FROM sys.fulltext_indexes
GO

SELECT * 
FROM dbo.nearnessTest 
WHERE CONTAINS( keywords, 'error' )

What happens when you issue an explicit start for the index population, eg

ALTER FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.yourTable START FULL POPULATION;

Run these summary functions

SELECT FULLTEXTSERVICEPROPERTY ( 'IsFulltextInstalled' ) IsFulltextInstalled
SELECT DATABASEPROPERTY('fullTextDemo3','IsFulltextEnabled') IsFulltextEnabled
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'AccentSensitivity ') AS AccentSensitivity 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'IndexSize ') AS IndexSize 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'ItemCount ') AS ItemCount 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'LogSize ') AS LogSize 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'MergeStatus ') AS MergeStatus 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'PopulateCompletionAge ') AS PopulateCompletionAge 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'PopulateStatus ') AS PopulateStatus 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'UniqueKeyCount ') AS UniqueKeyCount 
SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY('ftc_List3', 'ImportStatus ') AS ImportStatus