Programmatically refresh lucene index

Question

I'm using Sitecore 8.0 update 5. I'm a having a strange issue with Lucene.

I'm trying to update a product in the index with the following code:

var tempItem = (SitecoreIndexableItem)item;  

ContentSearchManager.GetIndex("sitecore_products_index").Refresh(tempItem);

Instead of an update, the code creates a new product entry in the index with no data (blank). If I debug, I can see the uniqueid is matching, so I'm not sure what is causing this behavior. If I simply do a '.Rebuild()', it refreshes the index with the new product, but I don't want to do that for one product change.

In addition to this, OnPublishEndAsync wasn't working either. Products change and the index won't refresh.

I found this bug fix, but it didn't seem to work for me: https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/992608

Thanks for any help!

<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
   <sitecore>
    <contentSearch>
      <configuration type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentSearchConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch">
        <indexes hint="list:AddIndex">
          <index id="sitecore_products_index" type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneIndex, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider">
            <param desc="name">$(id)</param>
            <param desc="folder">$(id)</param>

            <!-- This initializes index property store. Id has to be set to the index id -->
            <param desc="propertyStore" ref="contentSearch/indexConfigurations/databasePropertyStore" param1="$(id)" />

            <configuration ref="contentSearch/indexConfigurations/defaultLuceneIndexConfiguration">

            <indexAllFields>true</indexAllFields>

            <fields hint="raw:AddComputedIndexField">
                    <field fieldName="Back Image" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.ImageIndexField, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Front Image" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.ImageIndexField, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="ExternalID" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.TextIndexFieldAddOn, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Brand" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.TextIndexFieldAddOn, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Region" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.TextIndexFieldAddOn, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Substrates" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.TextIndexFieldAddOn, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Categories" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED">Service.Lucene.TreeListexIndexFieldAddOn, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Certification Icons" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" patch:after="field[last()]">Service.Lucene.TreeListexIndexField, Service</field>
                    <field fieldName="Applications" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" patch:after="field[last()]">Service.Lucene.TreeListexIndexField, Service</field>
            </fields>

            <fieldMap type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.FieldMap, Sitecore.ContentSearch">
                <fieldNames hint="raw:AddFieldByFieldName">
                  <field fieldName="Page Title" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                <field fieldName="Product Number" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                       <field fieldName="Short Description" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                       <field fieldName="Full Description" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                       <field fieldName="Features Description" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                       <field fieldName="Patent Numbers" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                       <field fieldName="Discontinued" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                       <field fieldName="_uniqueid" storageType="YES" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="YES" boost="1f" type="System.String"
                       settingType="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneSearchFieldConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider" />
                </fieldNames>

              </fieldMap>
              </configuration>

            <strategies hint="list:AddStrategy">
              <!-- NOTE: order of these is controls the execution order -->
              <strategy ref="contentSearch/indexConfigurations/indexUpdateStrategies/onPublishEndAsync" />
            </strategies>
            <commitPolicyExecutor type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.CommitPolicyExecutor, Sitecore.ContentSearch">
              <policies hint="list:AddCommitPolicy">
                <policy type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.TimeIntervalCommitPolicy, Sitecore.ContentSearch" />
              </policies>
            </commitPolicyExecutor>

            <locations hint="list:AddCrawler">
              <crawler type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.SitecoreItemCrawler, Sitecore.ContentSearch">
                <Database>master</Database>
                <Root>/sitecore/content/Products</Root>
              </crawler>
            </locations>

          </index>
        </indexes>
      </configuration>
    </contentSearch>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

Answer 1

For updating the index for a specific item, you can use the IndexCustodian

var toIndex = ContentSearchManager.GetIndex("sitecore_products_index");

if(toIndex != null)
{
    var tempItem = (SitecoreIndexableItem)item;
    IndexCustodian.Refresh(toIndex,tempItem);
}

The index custodian will start a job for updating your index.

Answer 2

We are going to upgrade soon, so hopefully this will resolve that issue. In the meantime, I updated this to .Rebuild() with an optimized configuration file. The index process is extremely quick. Thanks for the suggestions.