Slow inital query when using FreeTextTable in SQL Server 2005

Question

The following FreeTextTable query takes > 10 seconds on the first request, but about a second for subsequent requests:

SELECT [Key], [Rank]
INTO #matches
FROM FREETEXTTABLE(Book, [Description], @searchWord)

After approx. 10 minutes of inactivity the next request will once again take > 10 seconds. This seems like the freetext cache is periodically cleared.

Is this something that I can configure in SQL Server 2005?

Answer 1

Are you running this on a server without internet access?

SQL Server 2005 attempts to perform certificate validation on the word breaker the first time it is used. This times out after 45 seconds, after which point subsequent queries don't perform the check.

If however no full text queries are run for 5 minutes, the word breaker is unloaded and the certificate check is again performed.

You can disable the certificate check by running

sp_fulltext_service 'verify_signature', 0;

More information here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/915850