Index not found or initialized issues

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

In this article

Symptoms
Cause
Resolution

Symptoms

There may be many error messages appearing in the Sitecore logs.

Examples of error messages you may see:

"The provided index '{0}' was not found."

Exception System.ArgumentNullException: Precondition failed: The parameter 'FieldMap' must not be null 
Parameter name: FieldMap
   at Coveo.Framework.CNL.Precondition.NotNull(Object p_Parameter, String p_ParameterName)
   at Coveo.Framework.Fields.CoveoFieldNameTranslator.TranslateToCoveoFormat(String p_SitecoreFieldName, Boolean p_UsePrefix)
   at Coveo.AbstractLayer.FieldManagement.FieldsHandlerUtility.EnrichFieldInfoWithTranslatedFieldName(FieldInformation p_FieldInfo)
   at Coveo.Framework.Collections.EnumerableExtensions.ForEach[T](IEnumerable`1 p_Enumerable, Action`1 p_Action)
   at Coveo.AbstractLayer.FieldManagement.FieldsHandlerUtility.GetCompleteFieldConfigs(String p_IndexName)
   at Coveo.AbstractLayer.FieldManagement.CachedFieldsHandlerUtility.<Invalidate>b__11_0()

Exception System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 
   at Coveo.SearchProvider.AbstractSearchIndexSummary.<get_NumberOfDocuments>b__42_1()
   at Coveo.SearchProvider.AbstractSearchIndexSummary.TryPerformCallToIndexCommunication[T](Func`1 p_CallToIndexCommunication, T p_DefaultValue)
   at Coveo.SearchProvider.AbstractSearchIndexSummary.<get_NumberOfDocuments>b__42_0()
   at Coveo.SearchProvider.AbstractSearchIndexSummary.get_NumberOfDocuments()
   at Coveo.SearchProvider.AbstractSearchIndexSummary.GetIndexStatistics()
   at Coveo.Service.Api.IndexServiceBase.Indexes.IndexesServiceFetcher.ConvertToIndex(IProviderIndex p_ProviderIndex, IDictionary`2 p_IndexesDictionary)
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectListIterator`2.MoveNext()
   at System.Collections.Generic.List`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 collection)
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToList[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
   at Coveo.Service.Api.IndexServiceBase.Indexes.IndexesServiceFetcher.GetCoveoIndexes()

Cause

The actual root cause for these errors often lies upstream. The resolution section below provides help on where to find the root cause in the logs.

Resolution

Error 1 may result from a Sitecore instance shutting down or starting up around the same time.

WARN  Sitecore shutting down
WARN  Shutdown message: HostingEnvironment initiated shutdown

INFO  HttpModule is being initialized
INFO  Sitecore started

Errors 2 and 3 may result from the indexes not being initialized upon installation of Coveo for Sitecore. Search for the following log messages and make sure no error occurred while the index was initializing.

INFO Initializing index "Coveo_master_index"...

INFO Initializing index "Coveo_web_index"...