Coveo cloud error - “Initial build failed – Source refresh timeout”

This is the error I see under the Coveo source in the Coveo Cloud for the intial rebuild of a Sitecore instance. All the setup was done as recomended and rebuild was started but later I saw the error “Initial build failed – Source refresh timeout”.

Version used: Coveo for Sitecore 4.1

This is a generic error and there could be multiple reasons for this error.

1. Error after rebuild ran for more than 24 hours.

• In my case the rebuild was running for more than 24 hours and saw this error after 24 hours of the start. From the Coveo support I got to know that if the index runs for more than 24 hours, they would mark it as a error. Hence saw this error message below the source name. In this case, we need not worry and let the rebuild run as it is without stopping it. To confirm the same, you can check the logs to see if the rebuild is still running.

Note: Also, you can even check why the indexing was taking so much time. It could be the rebuild process running too slow or it is quick but there are thousands of items in your sitecore instance which is taking lot of time.

2. Could be that the rebuild process really failed

Causes include

• the IIS process which is running the rebuild is interrupted. May be restarted or stopped or thrown some critical error. In this case the rebuild has really been failed and you could initiate the rebuild process again.

• incorrect configuration of the Coveo on Sitecore can also lead to this error.

Note: To know the cause check the Sitecore logs, Coveo cloud logs.

Hope you find it useful. Please share your thoughts.