SharePoint 2010 Federated Search Not Working – Check Search Proxy Settings

Very quick post that will hopefully save someone some time.

Was recently installing FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint at a client.  All was well, but we noticed that Federated search results were not appearing.  Then the client pointed out that they use a proxy server.  So we went straight to Central Admin, clicked our Search SSA and then clicked on Proxy Server.

The Fields to fill out in the Search Proxy Settings form look very straight forward so we filled them out, however, our Federated results still were not displaying.  We checked a number of things to troubleshoot and none of them worked.  Then I had a brilliant idea – check the documentation 😉

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff623007.aspx

When I did, I learned an odd thing.  You must enter the proxy server address using a NetBIOS name or IP address.  If we have to do that, not sure whey it doesn’t just say it on the form, but at least it’s documented.

The moral is, when it doubt, look at the documentation.