SharePoint Search Error – Event ID 6482

Error 6482, I have been wondering and pondering about this error for the last couple of days and I finally found a fix for this and I am putting it here.

Our SharePoint servers were recently rebooted, after this I started having the following errors in the event log.

The Application Server Administration job failed due to the reason ” The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send”

Also the crawl status was error on the ssp admin site and the server status was as below

Could not connect to server ServerName for application ‘SSP Name’. This error might occur if the server is not responding to client requests, the firewall or proxy configuration is preventing the server from being contacted, or the search administration Web service is not running on the server.

I could not get to search settings and there was an error next the default content access account.

After some research, I found the cause for this the problem.

As everyone know, SharePoint search works through the Office Server Web Service, this web service uses has both HTTP (running off port 56737) and HTTPS (Running off port 56738) Protocols. When SharePoint is installed, no certificate will be available on HTTPS Port and sometimes servers will refuse to talk to each other especially in Windows Server 2008 R2 which has more stringent secure features.

A simple test to see if the servers are communicating with each other is to open the browser and type in http://servername:56737/SSP_NAME/Search/SearchAdmin.ASMX and https://servername:56738/SSP_NAME/Search/SearchAdmin.ASMX.

If you get the SearchApplicationWebService Page, you are good or it means the servers are not communicating with each other.

In my case, the servers were not communicating due to the certificate error. So whats the solution, I had to get a self signed certificate and install it for the Office Server Web Services Website. How can you do it? Follow the steps below

1. Download SSLDiag.EXE and install it,

2. Open up a command prompt and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Resouces\SSLDiag,

3. Type the follow command

SSLDiag.exe /SeflSSL /S:SiteId /V:730 /K:1024 /N:”CN=ServerName”

(You can get the Site ID for Office Server Web Services from IIS),

4. Hit enter and The cursor simply moves to the next line and you have self signed certificate,

5. Repeat this on your index server followed by your query server(s).

That’s it, now your servers should be communicating with each other and everything should be ok. Shoot me an email if you have any questions.