Search Service Application (SSA)

In SharePoint 2010 – When you try to browse to a Search Service Application (SSA), it shows he below error:

“System Status:

Crawl: The search service is not able to connect to the machine that hosts the administration component. Verify that the administration component c8519b74 status -<GUID> in search application Search Service Application is in a good state and try again.”

Additionally, you should see below errors in the Event logs:

“Description: The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.CrawlReportJobDefinition (ID 6dd22d5b-45cb-4860-aa01-d7f7d227a2f6) threw an exception. More information is included below. 

The search service is not able to connect to the machine that hosts the administration component. Verify that the administration component ‘9eff6ca0-1e01-4bf4-9653-b26ea54d0e5f’ in search application ‘SP2010 – Search Service Application’ is in a good state and try again. “

If you run PowerShell command ‘Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance’, it will show “{}” (NULL) in AdminComponents field.

To get rid of this, follow below steps:

Browse SSA through CA and see which server is hosting Administration component, UI should look like below:

So with above example SP2010NEW is the server that is hosting Search Administration component. Login to that server.

Run below PowerShell command:

$varInstance = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -local    (Assuming that you have only one SSA in farm)

If you type $varInstance and hit Enter key, you should see SharePoint Server Search instance details.

If you see it disabled then run another PS command —–> Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity <servername>

Once above runs successfully, execute below:

$varSearchApp = get-spenterprisesearchserviceapplication

Now set search Admin component:

set-spenterprisesearchadministrationcomponent –searchapplication $varSearchApp –searchserviceinstance $varInstance

After it gets completed successfully, you need to wait for sometime, may be about 5-10 minutes. Admin component should be ready and you should be able to browse SSA.

Source :http://blogs.technet.com/b/poojk/archive/2011/11/28/sharepoint-2010-search-service-is-not-able-to-connect-to-administration-component-server.aspx