I tried typing in the Start Button a while ago; nothing happened. I tried using the search icon next to the start button; same result.
Rebooted, no success.
Shut down, unplugged power for a minute, restarted, search worked.
Less than an hour later, search again does not work; I can type, but nothing appears, making the search function useless.
What might cause this, what might fix it?
Do you have the 'Windows Search' service running, is something stopping it?
Good question, thanks. If (when?) search stops again, I will check that service, which shows that it is set to start automatically. I had to reboot yet again to get search to work. I would write here that it is continuing to work,, but I am sure that it would see that and stop working.
If the service is found to have stopped, how might I determine what caused that to happen?
Later: Search not working on my wife's computer, either. Service was running; I stopped and restarted it, which did not restore search to working. Rebooting seems to be needed to do that, although once this morning it did not fix search on computer.
Last edited by Not Myself; 07 Aug 2015 at 11:56.
Hello - I just was having the same issue with the Search Service on my Windows 10. I figured mine out and was able to get it to start again and stay running. Might not be your issue, but here is what my issue was and how I resolved mine, and another thought or 2 of things to try:
1) My issue was the drive where the Index Location was set to (stores all the indexing files, etc) was out of space !! I went to the drive and did some necessary cleanup to get more available storage on the drive. After I did that, I opened up the services, and I didn't even have to manually start the search service. It must have already detected the free space and restarted by itself.
2) If that's not your issue, I know I've been running into several instances where there are permission problems on the C: drive, which is typically where most operating files are processed and stored. These permission problems can lead to some of these services not being able to allocate and create the folders, files, etc they need to do their job. However, I would caution against trying to change permissions or add to them on the C: Drive... that could be Pandora's Box. What you might want to try, is open the Indexing Options Dialog. If you have more than the C: Drive in your PC, you can change the Index Location. Click Advanced, then in the Index Location section, click Select New. I would create a new folder on a drive other than C:, such as "System Index Files", and choose that folder. Click ok's, etc to close out the dialog boxes. This should force the indexer to re-index and build those files on the new drive. If that works, then ... I suspect it's a permissions problem on the C: drive, but again, if the search starts working again, no harm in just leaving it set to the new location.
I hope that helps, or leads to a couple fresh ideas by yourself or someone else on this forum !
Good Luck !
Regards,
Matt
It is, indeed puzzling: When I start typing using the Start Button, it immediately changes to the search screen, as it does when using the search icon, but when search is not working, what I get is a screen that certainly looks as though it is same as when search is working, but instead of results, the screen is a black box.
I have no idea if this is a Windows bug, but that it happens on both our computers makes me think in that direction.
Thanks, but other than a USB external drive for backups, etc., only a C: drive, and that has 840 GB free.
Ah ok. That makes me think our experiences are unrelated. In my experience, when search service was not running the results would only bring up web search results. It was the programs and settings I was missing.
The USB External Drive will work perfect ! USB external drives operate just as an internal drive does and can be used for these services. However, just remember, if you set it there and it works, then removing that drive, will most likely force the Indexer to revert back to it's standard working location - most likely the C Drive.... But first, check the C Drive for available space, and even if it's getting low on space, try doing some clean up on it. As another thought while I'm typing this out, I'm not sure why it's not trying a warning message on my computer for "Low Drive Space".. that should have helped to prevent my problem, but .. that's an issue for another day... ! ;-)
-Matt
I suppose I could use the external drive, but don't want to bother. C:\ has had the usual clean-up procedures applied on one computer, not the other, but both exhibit the same behavior, so I don't think that that is the cause of the search failure.
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