Search hangs on “Starting”

I think I know why this happened from the beginning. I got the warning message in Health Reports about having Admin accounts running the app pools or services. So I have corrected one account and now all these messages are gone. But that caused a new problem with Search Service. The error message was:

"Unable to retrieve topology component health states. This may be because the admin component is not up and running."
 

Googled it, and found lots of articles about this error. Most suggestions was about installing hotfixes, adding permissions directly in the SQL db's, changing environment variables, installing latest win updates etc etc.

But I had a feeling it had more to do with the accounts running the Search services or application pools. I had changed some of these from farm account to a specific service account, for security reasons and what MS recommends. But, after having changed back the SharePoint Search Host Controller to the farm account, (Go to "Security", "Configure service accounts" and select the "Windows Service - Search Host Controller Service", make an IISRESET afterwards) and all started working instantly.


Maybe not recommended, but I will keep it running like this. The message in the Health Analyzer has not come back so, so far so good.
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Dinesh Pulugundla

Followed the steps mentioned but still Search Service Host Controller didnt started. Can you help further on this.

Lise Rasmussen

Hi Dinesh,
I have recently installed 8 new SP2013 servers and what I found is, that you can run this Search controller service with your Search account. Do not use the farm account.
You change this in Central Administration, Security, Configure service accounts > Find this service in the list, change the account to your Search account. Then do an IISRESET. That should work. Has done for me on the last 8 configurations I did… Good luck!