Propagation shows waiting for initialization

This is the most common issue sometimes we face when try to add a server with Query role in to a farm
Scenario:

• There are total 8 servers with MOSS 2007
• 4 WEBs and 4 APPs
• Indexer is on PRATIKAPP1 and other 3 have to be a query server
• I have already added PRATIKAPP2 & PRATIKAPP3 as a query long time back and they are working fine and search is running smoothly
• But recently we are facing heavy load in search and that’s why decided to go for another query server
• So the plan is to add PRATIKAPP4 as a query in farm

Steps:

• To achieve this goal I simply went to Central Administration > Operations > Services on Server
• Selected the server from the drop down “PRATIKAPP4″
• Then clicked on “Start” on “Office SharePoint Server Search” and applied path of Index folder shared on my APP4, hit OK
• It took couple of minutes to be started
• Checked timer job status and found the job to add PRATIKAPP4 has been initiated on PRATIKAPP1
• Then checked Search Administration and found Propagation status showing “waiting for initialization (PRATIKAPP4)”
• I had 400 GB of INDEX files data on other 2 query servers and periodically on PRATIKAPP4 INDEX folder was increasing in size, so I had to wait for some time.
• Now the main villain came which destroyed my INDEX data and made it to count from 0 –zero
• The reason was there are timer restart scripts ran on each server after 6 hours and I gone really mad when it INDEX file came back to zero from 250 GB.
• All jobs again stated back from scratch.

Resolution:

• Stopped OSearch from Central admin on PRATIKAPP4, which went to “Stopping” state
• So manually stopped it using stsaadm command on PRATIKAPP4
  • stsaadm –o osearch –action stop
• Then disable timer restart scripts on all servers
• Again followed all above steps
• Periodically checked INDEX folder on PRATIKAPP4
• It was increasing in size but the speed was too slow
• Finally it reached to 398 GB and under search administration I found the 3^rd Query server added
• Timer job status showed succeeded with 100 %
• Propagation status showed IDLE
• Everything was perfect as expected.

Thoughts:

• What I was thinking to get this resolved?
• Copy INDEX files from one location to another, but there were some active crawls going on and I did not want it to be stopped
• Finally if the server was not listed then planned to run following stsaadm command on PRATIKAPP4
  • stsadm -o osearch -propagationlocation filePathtoPropagationShare
• There are so many articles and suggestions available on internet which talks about this scenario, but what I suggest is to first check your environment and then go for resolution.
• Resolution or any issue is easy and I bet we guys definitely aware with it, but the thing only thing required is proper analysis and crystal clear knowledge of own environment.
• This is what I had faced and resolved, please feel free to provide me suggestions and inputs on my above steps.