In a newly created search center site, searching for anything opens the result page with
Unexpected response from server. The status code of response is '404'. The status text of response is 'Not Found'.
Which I assume to mean that it can't find the corresponding WCF service, but it doesn't give me a whole lot to go on. No correlation ID or anything. In watching ULS while performing a search, it simply has:
Entering monitored scope (Request (POST:https://***:443/_vti_bin/client.svc/ProcessQuery)). Parent No
Name=Request (POST:https://***:443/_vti_bin/client.svc/ProcessQuery)
Non-OAuth request. IsAuthenticated=True, UserIdentityName=0#.w|***\***, ClaimsCount=57
Leaving Monitored Scope (Request (POST:https://***:443/_vti_bin/client.svc/ProcessQuery)). Execution Time=2.69566383437001
Unsure if either of these are related. Simply providing as much context as possible:
Furthermore in ULS, I've come across this item marked critical:
mssearch.exe - Content Plugin can not be initialized - list of CSS addresses is not set.
And also this event log entry:
Faulting application name: hostcontrollerservice.exe, version: 15.0.4420.1017, time stamp: 0x50672c2d
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.2.9200.16384, time stamp: 0x5010ab2d
Exception code: 0xe0434352
Fault offset: 0x00000000000189cc
Faulting process id: 0x1dd8
Faulting application start time: 0x01cdc41c9069200d
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Search\HostController\hostcontrollerservice.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: ceca96b2-300f-11e2-93ff-005056b91db4
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
