1191 – Can’t find FULLTEXT index matching the column list

If you see the following error notice while conducting a full-text search in a column of a table, it signifies that the column doesn’t have a full-text index.

1191 – Can’t find FULLTEXT index matching the column list

Let’s reproduce this issue.

CREATE TABLE Dept(
EmployeeDetails VARCHAR(100));

INSERT INTO Dept VALUES
(‘John|Sales Team’),
(‘Mike|Sales’),
(‘Smith|Development’),
(‘Jim|New Sales Team’),
(‘Lucy|Development’),
(‘Will|Development’);

SELECT * FROM Dept WHERE MATCH(EmployeeDetails) AGAINST(‘+Sales+’) ;
1191 – Can’t find FULLTEXT index matching the column list

The solution is to add an index to “EmployeeDetails” column as shown below.

ALTER TABLE Dept ADD FULLTEXT(EmployeeDetails);

Hope this helps.