WSS search does not work after service account password changes

If you have a SharePoint 2003 version referred to as WSS, and you run into an scenario that search does not work reason being that the service account password expired on Active Directory.

First things first always remember to set the service account a condition to be on password never expires, Incase you miss it by mistake

Now as this happen you should

• shoot for KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838 which works most of the time



• stop the Windows SharePoint search service from Central admin page > Operations tab > services on server and start it again proving the new username and password



• you can try the same from command line, follow article on http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287997.aspx



• The last step to try is rebuilding your configuration data base and providing the same service account



• because earlier when password was changed WSS config database was not updated of the change and it did not recognize the account so no search results appeared



• After you do the new config database you should run the stsadm –o spsearch –action fullcrawlstart



• And this will not start immediately you need to give it maximum and hour and then check the performance



• I am 100% sure this will work !!!!