Wiki Pages not in Search Results

With the addition of a rather large Wiki Site in our SharePoint Farm, users began adding new "posts" like wildfire. However, when they went to search for them, all they got was the link to the main Wiki Page or a document or link that contained the word "wiki." After adding content sources, creating rules, and creating scopes I found the quick and simple fix. Click the box that enables search to crawl .aspx pages!

Here's what I did:

• Go to Site
• Site Actions
• Site Settings
• Search Visibility
• Check "Yes" for "Allow this web to appear in search results?"
• Check "Always index all ASPX pages on this site" for "This site does not contain fine-grained permissions. Specify the site's ASPX page indexing behavior:"

• Click OK
• Wait for the next or Start an incremental crawl
• Search for .aspx Wiki Pages

-Brian Grabowski

Search, Upgrades, and DB Maintenance

Recently I have run into some issues with Search. Indexing Errors, Propagation Errors, Account Errors, etc. Accounts that have been imported for months couldn't search items that were newly created and newly imported accounts could search, some search items were showing up immediately after the incremental crawl, while others that had been uploaded and checked-in for quite some time and still failed to show up, etc., etc... After about a week of research and some mild head bashing I have come up with some solutions as well as some proactive maintenance and scheduling plans that should help you out.

Here's what I did:

First off, install the latest infrastructures upgrades. There are two; one for WSS and one for MOSS. Make sure you implement the WSS one first and the MOSS one Second. However, make sure you implement them both! The WSS upgrade will fix some things and make a few improvements but the MOSS Infrastructure upgrade will give you a whole new feature set and it's own administrative console. For all of the updates see Microsoft's article http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/07/15/announcing-availability-of-infrastructure-updates.aspx

Once the upgrades are in place its time to review the second part; the Search schedule. It was brought to my attention (with a call to Microsoft regarding another matter) that a full crawl everyday for a large SharePoint implemtation is not necessary and more than likely counter productive. Perform a Full Crawl once a week on a Friday or Saturday morning. Perform incremental crawls 2 times a day (at most) in the morning and the evening.

Next we move on to the SQL/Database side of things where there are also a few recommendations. The first has to do with the Transaction Logs. The TL's are used to record any and all modifications made to databases, including the search/index database. Make sure that your TL's have enough space and are growing accordingly with the rest of your farm.
After all of this, you should continue to perform routine database maintenace as well as a few other things. Once a month you or your DBA's should defrag your SharePoint Databases just to keep them organized and dust free. One other thing to consider doing monthly is Rebuilding and Reindexing your SharePoint Search. This is again to de-clutter, clean up, and start fresh.

To Summarize:

• Install WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Upgrade
• Install MOSS 2007 Infrastructure Upgrade
• Run a Full Crawl Once a Week
• Run 2 Incremental Crawls daily
• Ensure your Transaction Logs have space to grow and grow accordingly with your farm
• Perform database maintenance regularly
• Once per month Perform SharePoint DB Defrag
• Once per month (or two months) Perform a complete Rebuild/Reindex of SharePoint Search

-Brian Grabowski

Searching for Numbers in SharePoint

If you have been trying to search for a number or a combination of numbers in SharePoint such as an IP address or strictly version numbers, you have probably been coming up short. This is due to "Noise Filtering." There is a text file that filters noise words such as "a," "the," "and," numbers, etc.

Here's what I did:

Edit the noiseenu.txt file
Go to "Sharepoint Portal Server Install directory"/Applications/Guid/Config/noiseenu.txtRemove the "numbers" from the file
Restart the SharePoint Search Service
Reset the search indexes and perform a full crawl

Once the crawl is finished you should now be able to search for numbers.

-Brian Grabowski

The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service

If Search was functioning fine yesterday, but seems to have taken a crap on you today you might want to try these quick and easy fixes followed by some maintenance on Service Accounts and their Logins.

Here's what I did:

Restart these services:

Indexing Service
Office SharePoint Server Search
Windows SharePoint Services Search

After this do a quick IISReset and test the search functionality.

Or heres a quick script to restart all of the services and perform an IISReset for you.

net stop "Indexing Service" && net start "Indexing Service"
net stop "Office SharePoint Server Search" && net start "Office SharePoint Server Search"
net stop "Windows SharePoint Services Search" && net start "Windows SharePoint Services Search"

iisreset \\servername /noforce
iisreset \\servername /status
pause


If this worked for you then you might want to check the Service Accounts that you have tied to these services. They stopped or quit working for a reason. Investigate your Search and Query Server's Event Viewer and see what happened.

-Brian Grabowski