Recently came across a couple of issues where users haved decided to split their Index and Query roles. Now there’s nothing crazy about that, as most folks out there will utilise their Web Front-Ends as Query server or indeed have a dedicated Query servers if you’re servicing thousands of users.
When we moved the Query role off the initial Index server we were presented with the following error message;
The search request is unable to connect to the search service
After the usual troubleshooting and double checking the “searchindexpropagation” share permissions. Checking the necessary NTFS permissions were in place such as WSS_Admin_WPG local (Full) security group and your Server Farm Account (Modify) account being in place. We checked to make sure thet applicaion GUID for search was existant in registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications, this key should reflect the RegistryBlog.reg file you will see on the filesystem, as this gets merged when the “Office SharePoint Server Search” service starts.
Checked to make sure the roles were registered correctly by performing “stsadm -o osearch -action list”, happy days you would think as 99% of the time it would be one of those issues.
We performed a search with the customer and still no go.
Finally remembered when I first started here one of the first issues I dealt with was on search. We had to go ahead and reset the SharePoint Configuration Cache. To perform this operation go %ALLUSERSPROFILE% \Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\
net stop osearch
net start osearch
Jumped back onto the client, performed a serach from the Search Center and Bob’s your uncle, search results in all their glory.
Case closed.
Kristof Kowalski | kristof@monofive.com | SharePoint RTFM
