When you execute some queries on your SQL Server, are you sure the catalog is being imported?
With this simple script you can know which is the Index status.
DECLARE @CatalogName VARCHAR(MAX) SET @CatalogName = 'TEST_FullIndex' SELECT FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(@CatalogName,'ItemCount') as NumberOfItems, FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(@CatalogName,'ImportStatus') as ImportStatus, DATEADD(ss, FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(@CatalogName, 'PopulateCompletionAge'), '1/1/1990') AS LastPopulated, (SELECT CASE FULLTEXTCATALOGPROPERTY(@CatalogName,'PopulateStatus') WHEN 0 THEN 'Idle' WHEN 1 THEN 'Full Population In Progress' WHEN 2 THEN 'Paused' WHEN 3 THEN 'Throttled' WHEN 4 THEN 'Recovering' WHEN 5 THEN 'Shutdown' WHEN 6 THEN 'Incremental Population In Progress' WHEN 7 THEN 'Building Index' WHEN 8 THEN 'Disk Full. Paused' WHEN 9 THEN 'Change Tracking' END) AS Status FROM sys.fulltext_catalogs AS cat
More information about the status or other property on Microsoft https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190370.aspx