I have the following issue when setting up SharePoint 2013 Search Service Application.

Whenever I started full crawling my content sources, after certain time (usually the next day). Content Sources page and Crawl Log will give Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))

Checking Search Instance Server’s Application Log and you can see the following error

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.IndexingScheduleJobDefinition (ID e611e95c-dc0a-40ee-a3a3-c58f2099c2d1) threw an exception. More information is included below.

Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))

Event ID 6398

Subsequently go to Central Administration page > Timer Jobs to look for the respective Timer

Found “Indexing Schedule Manager on xxxServerNamexxx” failed miserably, for every 5 minutes.

It was then found that some user has this issue previously which has got something to do with TASKS folder in your C:\WINDOWS

In case if you do not have the history of your Domain GPO, this particular folder was previously a target for Conficker Worm virus. Refer here. MS recommended to actually change the permission of this folder which then conflict the requirement for SharePoint Search Service.

If you are interest in checking your own GPO setting, you can simply run “rsop.msc” in your server’s RUN command. And you should be able to see the settings made as per below

 

Workaround

In order to solve the issue, you have to get your AD GPO team to remove this setting from your sharepoint servers. Explicitly for this requirement or else your search cannot crawl.

For temp solution, you have to change the Owner of this TASKS folder and grant

WSS_WPG with minimum “Read” and “Write” access.

Finger Crossed