Adobe Pdf Ifilter 11
This AdddOn is only needed if you have a x64 computer. On a x86 PDF search is already working.
iFilter PDF search doesn't work on Windows 8 x64
Windows 8 64 bit provides native support for the PDF iFilter, which enables indexing PDFs so you can search for specific text. Installing Acrobat or Reader 11.0 breaks this feature. It overwrites the Windows 8 native iFilter registry entry with the product registry entry.
Do one of the following:
- Update to Acrobat/Reader 11.0.4 or higher. The issue is fixed in version 11.0.4.
- PDF iFilter 9 is not supported on Windows 8, update to PDF iFilter 11 from here.
If you cannot update your Acrobat/Reader or PDF iFilter, here is the workaround.
Workaround: Restore the registry entry to the Windows 8 native entry as follows:
Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.pdfPersistentHandler. Create the key if it does not exist.
Verify that the value is 1AA9BF05-9A97-48c1-BA28-D9DCE795E93C. If the Acrobat or Reader install overwrote the entry with F6594A6D-D57F-4EFD-B2C3-DCD9779E382E, return it to its original value.
If you have any third-party PDF iFilters installed, reinstall them.
Restart the Windows Search service:
- Go to Task Manager > Services.
- Select WSearch.
- Right-click, and then choose Restart.
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I'm trying to get iFilter to work, I'm running Windows 10 64-bit with MS SQL Server 2017/2016 Developer version. I've downloaded the 64-bit version of iFilter 11 from Adobe website and I followed their guide here. Even though it's for MS SQL 2008/2012 it's still pretty easy to follow.
My problem is that the full-text search doesn't return any results.
I installed iFilter 11 64-bit and added it to the systemPATH. I confirmed that this is working by restarting the pc and finding the DLL from cmd.
After that, because I didn't have the FullText search component of MSSQL Server, I installed it and started the SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher (I also restarted the main MSSQL Server instance).
I already had a DB and apparently FullText search are enabled by default now so I continued with the installation.
I loaded the components and verified that everything is recognized by running the following queries:
With the queries I was able to:
- Verify that the FullText Search component is installed
- I was able to load the different filters and verify that iFilter wasbeing loaded.
- I have also made sure that fulltext is enabled on the database eventhough it is on by default.
- I've created a table and a catalog and I specified the most complexlanguage that it will be used for (French).
- After creating my table and my catalog I ran a query to verify thatthe PdfText column had a text index and it did.
Following Adobe own guide, I created their sample WinForm application to upload PDFs. I uploaded 2 PDF, one in French, the other in English. I then searched for simple words that should be contained in them but no results were returned.
I have tried rebuilding the Catalog and rebuilding all index for my pdf table but it didn't change the result.
I tried Installing iFilter 9 by downloading the file PDFiFilter64installer.zip from Adobe ftp in case the newest version had any problem. Unfortunately, it doesn't work either. I have ran a profiler on the MSSQL server and no error is being thrown.
I have searched and gathered multiple related questions which helped me build my complete troubleshooting. I will link them so that they are easier to search together:
SQL Server : full-text pdf search results using contains and ifilters - Not answered
Using full-text search with PDF files in SQL Server 2008 - No working answer for MSSQL 2017.
Using full-text search with PDF files in SQL Server 2005 - Not working for MSSQL 2017 either.
I'm thinking that maybe iFilter just doesn't work on newer OS and newer version of MSSQL.
TristanTristan2 Answers
Try to use iFilter 9 - ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/9.x/PDFiFilter64installer.zip and install it to a short path (C:iFilter works for me).
Adobe Pdf Ifilter 11 For 32-bit Platforms
I got it working on SQL Server 2019
Following these tipshttps://dba-presents.com/index.php/databases/sql-server/48-full-text-search-with-pdf-documents-in-sql-server-2014using a newer URL to the iFilter:https://supportdownloads.adobe.com/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=5542&fileID=5550I used the short name version of my iFilter path (i.e. c:SQLSer~1IFilter)I had a little challenge getting the SQL Server account to access the IFilterbin directory but used thishttps://www.thewindowsclub.com/fix-failed-to-enumerate-objects-in-the-containerto help me get that straight.
I restarted my computer after I did all the steps (because not doing so didn't work for me)and now it works for me. Hope this is useful to someone else.