SharePoint 2010 Search - The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service

Question

I am using SharePoint 2010 Foundation and I have a prolem with the search on there. Everytime I search for something I get the response of The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service.

I have spent alot of time looking at this and I cannot seem to see what is causing the issue. The SharePoint Foundation Search service is started but there are no services listed on the server for search other than the 'Help Search'.

Also, if I look into my content databases under the 'Manage Database Upgrade Status' it telling me that the database is too old...

Could anyone point me in the right direction as to how to resolve these issues as it is sending me mad!!

Many Thanks in advance... Luke

Answer 1

After some further research into this I found it was a simple case of needing to upgrade some of my databases (the search database being one of them).

To view the databases that needed upgrading I used the Powershell Commands:

Get-SPDatabase | ?{$_.NeedsUpgrade -eq $true} | Select Name

AND

Get-SPContentDatabase | ?{$_.NeedsUpgrade -eq $true} | Upgrade-SPContentDatabase

This allowed me to identify all databases that needed this (pretty much the same as using the Health Analyzer in Central Admin). I then ran the following PSCONFIG command through the powershell command windows to perform the upgrade:

psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace -b2b -force -wait

Finally I ran the Products and Technologies wizard and all worked fine (including the search).

Answer 2

Execute this command in SharePoint 2010 Management Shell (run as administrator)

psconfig -cmd upgrade

It will initiate standard SharePoint Products update and upgrade all databases which are in either "version mismatchm, upgrade is recommended" or "old, upgrade is required" status. The tool runs in command line and gives your updates about installation progress, like this.

PS C:\Users\Administrator> psconfig -cmd upgrade

SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard version 14.0.6009.1000. Copyright (C) M
icrosoft Corporation 2010. All rights reserved.

Performing configuration task 1 of 4

Initializing SharePoint Products upgrade...
Waiting to get a lock to upgrade the farm.
Successfully initialized SharePoint Products upgrade.

Performing configuration task 2 of 4

Initiating the upgrade sequence...
Successfully initiated the upgrade sequence.

Performing configuration task 3 of 4

Upgrading SharePoint Products...
Successfully upgraded SharePoint Products.

Performing configuration task 4 of 4

Finalizing the SharePoint Products configuration...
Successfully completed the SharePoint Products configuration.
Total number of configuration settings run: 4
Total number of successful configuration settings: 4
Total number of unsuccessful configuration settings: 0
Successfully stopped the configuration of SharePoint Products.
Configuration of the SharePoint Products has succeeded.

PS C:\Users\Administrator>

Answer 3

This is my experience: For every time a fresh new install SharePoint 2010, the search service is good and working. When the 2008 server runs the auto update and found some update patches for SharePoint and get loaded automatically, then the SharePoint search will failed afterward with the message "The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service".
It looks like the auto loaded SharePoint patches will so something inference the search service but not do the work in a clean way.

I have used the "psconfig -cmd upgrade" command first but search is not work at first. Then, I go to Central Administration -> System Settings -> Manage services on server, stop the "SharePoint Foundation Search" service, this will remove all search index. Start it up again. Afterward, the search works again.