Search Charm Broken!

Hey everyone,

I've been having this problem for quite some time now and I am pretty sure this issue I am experiencing is caused by a buggy update but a want to be sure and I want to be able to fix it.

My problem is that the search charm doesn't work anymore for me! When I go to the charm, I no longer see the list of apps I used to when I got the computer. But the worst part is when I type the names of apps, settings, or files, none come up. This is not an indexing problem because search works fine in File Explorer.

If it helps, I'm using Windows 8.1 Preview (Build 9431)

Thanks!

Hello ComputingAgent,

Search has changed in Windows 8.1 versus Windows 8. For now, see if the tutorial below may help following the parts for Windows 8.1.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4595-search-windows-8-a.html

Brink said:

Hello ComputingAgent,

Search has changed in Windows 8.1 versus Windows 8. For now, see if the tutorial below may help following the parts for Windows 8.1.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4595-search-windows-8-a.html

Click to expand...

Hello Brink, I appreciate your reply. Your tutorial you linked to was very well-written. However, the issue isn't that I don't know how to use 8.1 search, it's that it's not working. As I mentioned, when I go to the search charm and choose an option from the dropdown, I don't see the list of apps or previous searches, and when I type stuff in, nothing happens. This is not an indexing issue because searching from File Explorer works fine.

Do you get any search results after you press Enter or click on the Search icon just to the left of the search box?

Double check the items in the yellow Tip box at the top of the tutorial anyways just to make sure that they are ruled out.

Do you see the same as below when search for the same with "Everything" selected?

That's strange. I rebuilt the index like the tutorial said and it worked. I can search in the box and get results now, and my search for "note" looks more or less like the screenshot you posted. I wonder why search has always worked in File Explorer, though. However, searching for settings doesn't bring up any results unfortunately. Also, pressing enter or clicking the arrow still doesn't bring me any results in the new search page.

Thanks for getting me the answer, but I'm afraid I still cannot mark this issue as solved because of the search screen not working.

That's good so far.

As a test, search from "Everywhere" for *.txt and press Enter to see if you get the search results like below afterwards.

As with every other search I conduct and hit enter with, I get no results and after I while I'll get a message in that search "app" that says "Something went wrong, and it's taking too long to complete your search. Try searching again."

Do you have all of your Windows Updates installed?

Use Troubleshooting with the Search and Indexing option to see if that may be able to sort it for you.

If not, then run a sfc /scannow command to see if you may have any corrupted system files.