ATG - atg.search.routing.RoutingSearchException: No engines responded. Verify the configuration for environment 'default1'

Problem

I was getting the following error when I tried to start my Live aka Core aka StoreFront server which was using ATG Search and tried to do a Search.

atg.search.routing.RoutingSearchException: No engines responded. Verify the configuration for environment 'default1' 

I was also seeing a couple of warnings as below.

13:27:06,212 WARN  [RoutingSearchService] No running search engines for env default1, partition 1000117 in LP Content Set 1
13:27:06,346 WARN  [RoutingSearchService] No running search engines for env default1, partition 1000117 in LP Content Set 1


Solution

Assuming that you have had your Search configured properly and deployed and its been working before and suddenly it has started giving the above mentioned errors, here is the solution. Its probably because your atgsearch.exe isnt running anymore and you may have to start it manually by going into CA/Search Administration and start the default1 instance or you can follow the below steps to start it using the dyanmo admin of the Live server.


1. If you Live server is running on port 8180, navigate to http://localhost:8180/dyn/admin/nucleus/atg/search/routing/RoutingSystemService/


2. You should be able to see all the configured search environments in a table.


3. Click on the start link against the search environment which you have to start, in my case it was default1 as the error notified.


4. After clicking on the start link wait for the RunningEngineCount to show a value > 0

5. When the RunningEngineCount is greater than 0, do a search on your StoreFront application and it should work now.