FAST Search: the infamous “Failed to initialize session with document engine: Unable to resolve Content distributor”

In the numerous FAST configurations the error above is the most common and one that I wanted to share my experiences with. There is a number of issues that might be causing this error and renders FAST Search unable to crawl. This issue can be from the initial configuration of FAST, but can also be introduced later on if you modify the deployment.XML and reconfigure FAST.

Here is the list of the most common ways of resolution and is in the order of :

1. Secure the connector by running

.\SecureFASTSearchConnector.ps1 -certPath "path of the certificate\certificatename.pfx" -ssaName "name of your content SSA" -username "domain\username"

replacing the necessary parameters with the values for your environment. Here are the detailed instructions http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381261.aspx

2. Check if the domain and user name is reflecting the details of the user running the SharePoint Server Search 14 (OSearch14) service. The user account running Server Search 14 service should be the same as the user name used to secure the connector.

3. Make sure that the content distributor URL is the same as in the Install_Info file located within your FASTSearch folder or the same as in the fastsearch\etc\contentdistributor.cfg  file – sometime that might be the issue is the value in the install_info file is not the same as the cfg file, use the URL from the CFG file.

Hope it helps.

Enjoy

Technorati Tags: FAST Search Crawl,FAST Search for SharePoint 2010

New York Enterprise Search User Group celebrates its Two Year Anniversary

The New York Enterprise Search User Group celebrates its Two Year Anniversary by welcoming back the speaker who started it all, Nathan Treloar!
We hope that you will join the festivities, bring a friend as we end the year on high note and a look into the future of Enterprise Search! 

DECEMBER MEETING - Wednesday, December 14th 5:30PM

REGISTER TODAY

SUBJECT
Video Search and the Rise of Time-coded Metadata
Searching video certainly isn’t a new thing. Youtube has been with us for years now, after all. But when it comes to emerging trends in video search, both on the Web and in the enterprise, there are signs that we are entering a new age. The time-coded nature of video and the ability (or lack thereof) to search and navigate *inside* video content represent a new frontier for search that is only just now coming to light.
In this interactive, demo-rich presentation, Nate Treloar, VP of Strategic Markets for RAMP, will walk through the latest trends in video search and show how the rise of time-coded metadata is changing how people discover and engage with online video.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nathan Treloar, is VP of Technology for Strategic Alliances at RAMP where he is responsible for expanding RAMP’s industry leading Content Optimization solutions into new markets. Prior to RAMP, Nate was the Principal Search Technology Evangelist in the Microsoft Enterprise Search Group and held responsibility for the group’s technology innovation and evangelism programs.
Nate came to Microsoft through the acquisition of FAST, where he was Senior Vice President of Technology and a member of the leadership team that took FAST from an entry level player to a leader in the enterprise search market. In a career spanning more than two decades, Nate has held key executive positions for search, text mining, publishing, and knowledge management software and solutions. He has advised hundreds of world’s largest companies and government agencies on applications of search and search related technologies.
ADDRESS
1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor NY, NY 10104