FAST Search Center: The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service.

Question

Hi,

I am not sure if this question might belong more into the FAST forum, but it might also be Sharepoint related.

I have a 2 server SP2010 farm having a FAST4SP search backend. The search service application is crawling fine and I have a couple of documents in my contentcollection in FAST. So far so good.

When I want to find something from my webapp's fast search center it says:

The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service.

The ULS logs report the following:

FASTSearchRuntime::SendRequest--Search Service Not Found Exception when trying to search FAST backend: Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.SearchServiceNotFoundException: The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service. ---> System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceApplicationFault]: The creator of this fault did not specify a Reason. (Fault Detail is equal to Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceApplicationFault).     --- End of inner exception stack trace ---     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceApplicationProxy.ThrowBackwardCompatibleException(FaultException`1 ex)     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceApplicationProxy.DoSpLoadBalancedUriWs... 1b56e3ad-6cac-4ecb-94d7-a3de4e117262
05/15/2012 00:48:11.22* w3wp.exe (0x12F8)                       0x11C0 SharePoint Server Search       Query                         g4hx Monitorable

Any idea?

Thanks

Sven

Answer 1

Hi,

check this maybe it's useful

http://blogs.technet.com/b/saantil/archive/2011/05/01/getting-quot-the-search-request-was-unable-to-connect-to-the-search-service-quot.aspx

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Regards,
Fadi Abdulwahab, SharePoint Consultant
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/fabdulwahab
http://sqlgoogler.blogspot.com/

Answer 2

Couple of things:

1. Make sure that your Web app is associated with the FAST Query Proxy.

2. Make sure or even go through re-securing query service http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381253.aspx

3. Go to the FAST server and make sure that all services are up and running by running "NCTRL Status" (without quotes) in command prompt 

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SharePoint MVP, Microsoft VTSP, http://www.arcovis.com

Answer 3

Natalya, you made my day ;-)

The step I was missing was to configure claims authentication (importing the STS cert of Sharepoint into FAST).

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381253.aspx

Configure claims authentication

This section describes how to transfer a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 STS certificate (MOSS_STS) from SharePoint Server 2010 to all FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint query servers to provide security trimmed queries.

Security trimming, or item level security, limits user access to items in search results that the user who submitted the query is authorized to see.

On SharePoint Server 2010, export the SharePoint STS certificate:

1. On the Start menu, click All Programs.

2. Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

3. Right-click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, and select Run as administrator.

4. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command(s):

   $stsCert = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).LocalLoginProvider.SigningCertificate
   $stsCert.Export("cert") | Set-Content  -encoding byte MOSS_STS.cer
   

   The file MOSS_STS.cer is created in the directory from which you run the commands.

5. Copy MOSS_STS.cer to a location that is available to the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint query servers.

On each FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint query server, import the SharePoint STS certificate:

1. On the Start menu, click All Programs.

2. Click Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.

3. Right click Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint shell and select Run as administrator.

4. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, browse to <FASTSearchFolder>\installer\scripts\, where<FASTSearchFolder> is the path of the folder where you have installed FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, for example C:\FASTSearch. Type the following command:

   .\InstallSTSCertificateForClaims.ps1 -certPath <"full path of MOSS STS certificate">

Answer 4

Awesome, I'm glad it worked.

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SharePoint MVP, Microsoft VTSP, http://www.arcovis.com