How to re-enable fulltext search on MSSQL database

29 June 2023

Sometimes it could happen that existing fulltext search stops working, very common scenario - after adding new table filed. It it happens without warning. Nice job MS.

mssql fulltext

In that case, you can test is your database affected:

SELECT name as [DBName], is_fulltext_enabled FROM sys.databases

If your databse is marked as is_fulltext_enabled = 0, you can enabled it again with:

use YOUR_DB
EXEC sp_fulltext_database 'enable'