SearchStax

SearchStax Cloud customers sometimes encounter issues when connecting Sitecore to Solr Cloud for the first time. The issues are so common that a developer can encounter them in sequence (fix one, meet the next one). On this page we present solutions to a range of these Sitecore start-up issues.

Note that SearchStax supplies explicit instructions for bridging this gap, including the SearchStax Cloud Connector for Sitecore that performs the configuration for you.

Sitecore can’t connect to Solr:

• IP Filtering. First, be sure that the computer running Sitecore has been whitelisted in the IP filters of the Solr deployment. Note that DHCP can change a server’s IP address without warning. If the connection used to work but then stopped working, suspect this source.
  
  
• Incorrect Sitecore connection string. To connect Sitecore to a Solr cloud cluster, check the SitecoreWebSite/App_Config/ConnectionStrings.config file for an entry similar to:
  
  <add name="solr.search" connectionString="<Solr HTTP Endpoint>/solr;solrCloud=true" />
  
  Solr is unforgiving about this string. An extra / at the end will break it.
  
  The connectionString ends with /solr;solrCloud=true. There is no / between /solr and the semicolon. Sitecore inserts that character automatically.
  
  If you connect to Solr from a browser, which is a good debugging aid, you must include the / prior to the semicolon, as in /solr/;solrCloud=true.
  
  The solrCloud=true parameter is highly recommended for single-node Solr deployments, and is required for Solr clusters.
  
  
• Incorrect xConnect connection string. When using xConnect to index XDB databases, for every instance of the xConnect Collection Search role, open the <role-root>/App_Config/ConnectionStrings.config file and set:
  
  <add name="solrCore" connectionString="<Solr HTTP Endpoint>/solr/xdb;solrcloud=true" />
  
  The connectionString ends with /solr/xdb;solrCloud=true. There is no / between /solr/xdb and the semicolon.
  
  
• Sitecore mentions 10.x.x.x:8983. You tried to build an index from the Sitecore Index Manager. The system seemed to hang or took a very long time to complete indexing. There was an error saying “Unable to connect to Solr” and mentioning an internal IP address (10.x.x.x) and port 8983.
  
  This is a known bug in Sitecore. To get around it:
  • Generate the index from the Sitecore Content Editor instead of the Index Manager.
  • Contact Sitecore for a patch file. This bug is being tracked by Sitecore under the reference number – 355209.

  This situation sometimes arises due to a misconfiguration of the Sitecore 10/Solr connection. See Walkthrough: Setting up SolrCloud, section Configure Sitecore to use SolrCloud, step 3:
  
  

  If you only access nodes of SolrCloud within a private network, set the ContentSearch.IndexingManager.DisplayShortStatistic setting to true. This eliminates direct requests to the nodes used to display additional index statistics in the Indexing Manager Wizard.
  
  

• Solr Basic Auth password contains special characters: The Sitecore connection string to Solr often contains the Solr Basic Auth username and password:
  
  https://username:pass%word@<Solr Endpoint>;solrCloud=true
  
  There are special characters that cannot be passed in an HTTP URL. If the password contains % signs, for instance, you will get an error saying “Not a valid Solr URL.” Substitute %25 for % in the URL string, so the above password becomes “pass%25word”.
  
  Or, just use a password without special characters.

Solr.log file contains schema or field errors:

• See our Help Center page on What causes Indexing Errors? for more information.