Issue with Searching Team Subsites

[JMVSE]

Hello all,

Let me set this up properly. Currently we have two Sharepoint Servers, one running WSS and the other running SPS2k3/WSS. The WSS only server is old and we are migrating from it to the Portal Server.

On the Portal Server we have 3 main sites, Technology, Marketing, Operations. We are porting all of the WSS Team sites from the old server under one of the three aforementioned main sites. For example a subsite about "server migration" would go under the "Technology" subsite.

When I try to search on anything that would be under the "server migration" subsite I get no results. I can search successfully on anthing that is on Technology, Marketing, or Operations, but anything under those sites are unsearchable.

Under Configure Searching and Indexing I see that the subsites have been crawled without errors I also see a large number processed documents, but I am still unable to search. When looking at the gatherer log I do not see any references to documents (mainly have .docs and .xls files on the subsites), but I do see the subsites themselves referenced. It seems to me Portal is crawling the subsites, but not indexing the documents that were posted.

Also I -do- see references to .pdf files (didnt install the plug in yet, so SPS can't index these). I have turned on Log each document successfully retrieved and any indexing warnings. and Log each document excluded from this content index for the gatherer log, so I should see any document that was indexed.

 

[JMVSE]

No one has had a problem like this before? Surely someone has had issues with searching subsite content.

 

[Burninator]

One thing you may need to look at is adding those sites you have restored to the site Directory in SPS2003. And the you must specify whether to crawl the sites or not. When you restored the WSS subsites, where did you restore them? Was it under the default /sites inclusion? Or do you have site directories under each of the Areas you have created?

Let me know I will check back in a few.

Later
Jay

 

[JMVSE]

I restored them to /sites/Technology/, /sites/Marketing/, /sites/Operations/ respectively depending on what the subsite topic was. Where can I check to see if these are being crawled? Thanks for the reply, this is my first time working with SPS and WSS.

 

[Thomas2000]

Hello,

You should be able to check the gatherer logs, under site settings, manage search and indexing.

Cheers,
Thomas

http://www.thompa.se

 

[JMVSE]

Hi Thomas,

Yes I've checked the logs and see references to objects on the subsites, but I never see references to word documents or excels or any other documents. What I do see are .pdfs referenced on the subsites and things like the below:

7/17/2006 10:33:20 AM Modify Sts2://website.com/sites/technology/HMS/webid=004/listid={2C65F70B-2E37-4F27-BE33-28DAC14425C6}/itemid=2
Started

7/17/2006 10:33:20 AM Modify Sts2://website.com/sites/technology/HMS/webid=004/listid={2C65F70B-2E37-4F27-BE33-28DAC14425C6}/itemid=1
Started

7/17/2006 10:33:20 AM Modify Sts2://website.com/sites/technology/HMS/webid=004/listid={CFA3F090-BE56-47BE-AEA9-1D46DA287D99}/itemid=14
Started

7/17/2006 10:33:20 AM Add

http://website.com/sites/technology/HMS/Shared

Documents/USAePay_VBVMSC.pdf

 

[JMVSE]

Either you two have any other ideas? Can anyone else lend a hand?

Burninator (IS/IT--Management) 18 Jul 06 15:23
One thing you may need to look at is adding those sites you have restored to the site Directory in SPS2003. And the you must specify whether to crawl the sites or not. When you restored the WSS subsites, where did you restore them? Was it under the default /sites inclusion?

Does anyone know how to do the above?

 

[Burninator]

In the Portal Site Settings, under Configure Search and Indexing, you will need to switch to Advanced Mode. It is a good thing in any case.

Then browse down to the bottom and look for Manage Site Directory. Look under Approved Sites, and see if your sites are there if not, you'll need to add them.

Do this by selecting the Add a link to site on the left, should be near the top. In there you will put the relative link to the sites, for example the URL for your marketing site will be /sites/marketing. In that case whatever URL you use to access the portal will work no matter what. Ensure you select the Allow this site to be crawled check box. And then kick off a full update on the Non Portal Index. That is where all the info for your team sites search is kept from portal.

Now one thing I'll also need clarified. Can you search these sites from there own search box and not from the portal level? I say that becasue the portal search of the site and the site itself are two seperate searches. On the portal level portal maintains its own indexes. The WSS team sites still use SQL Full text search, so make sure either or both is working.

Let me know if this works out for you.

Jay

 

[JMVSE]

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the reply. I did what you suggested and I'm still having the same problems. I noticed the Index is cleaner (less links) but it also searches faster. Still no errors in the gather logs, except for these:

7/21/2006 10:27:06 AM Add Sts2://website.com/sites/marketing/GL-Website/webid=011/fpitemid=default.aspx
Content for this URL is excluded by the server because a no-index attribute.

7/21/2006 10:27:06 AM Add Sts2://website.com/sites/marketing/webid=000/fpitemid=default.aspx
Content for this URL is excluded by the server because a no-index attribute.

And to address your other question using the search on the sub-sites themselves works perfect. The search issues are only on the portal side, if I can get portal returning the same results the team site searches are individually.

 

[JMVSE]

Hi Burninator, any other suggestions? I read somewhere that Portal will not search sub WSS sites, only the top level site e.g. it will search /sites/marketing, but not /sites/marketing/sd Do you have any idea if that is true?

Thanks for you help thus far.

 

[Thomas2000]

The portal search will indeed search subsites, it is the simple search in WSS that will not let you search subsites in a site collection.

I am using the portal search and indexing and crawling all my wss sites and it works just fine.

So I would say the statement is not true

Cheers,
Thomas

http://www.thompa.se

 

[JMVSE]

Are do you have multiple layers of subsites Thomas or do you just have all of your WSS Sites flat under /sites/?

 

[Burninator]

Hey JMVSE,

Sorry didn't respond was out of town.

OK, basically the Non_portal_index will handle all of the WSS team sites below

http://>portal_name</*

that would include all the sites under the sites inclusion, like

http://portalname/sites/teamsitename.

As Thomas correctly states, only the WSS FTS is limited to search within its own site. Portal Search is much more flexible.

The errors that I see above really mean that the portal search cannot index list items. There are a few ways around this, including making changes to the index crawling rules, I'll do a bt of research and get back to you.

Have you made any changes to the non_portal_index rules?

Will check back in a few.

Jay

Later,
Jay

 

[JMVSE]

Hi Jay,

I'm fairly sure I did not change them outside of the defaults. I did inheirit this server in a way, an admin that worked before me actually set it up, but the business only now decided it was time to migrate from Sharepoint to Portal. The sites I currently have under

http://portalname/sites/toplevelsite/sites

where are moved using SMIGRATE, not sure if that is part of the problem.

 

[JMVSE]

Any new thoughts on this?