Cannot start service SPSearchHostController on computer

Question

I have some difficulties to start SPSearchHostController on computer.

I have restarted the Server and IIS reset.

"An attempt to start/stop instance of service Search Host Controller Service on server did not succeed. Re-run the action via UI or command line on the specified server. Additional information is below."

Cannot start service SPSearchHostController on computer '.'.

Faulting application name: hostcontrollerservice.exe, version: 16.0.4666.1000, time stamp: 0x5a82eb6e Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.2.9200.22753, time stamp: 0x5ccba6bc Exception code: 0xe0434352 Fault offset: 0x000000000002c978 Faulting process id: 0x2758 Faulting application start time: 0x01d5428ce41d4bda 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: 2ac644af-ae80-11e9-943e-00155dc8c3aa Faulting package full name: Faulting package-relative application ID:

Answer 1

There can multiple issues with respect to this problem.. You can try following options, it may help.

1. Validate under central admin if Search host controller service is in starting state or not. If yes, then you can leave as it. If not, then you would need to use powershell to stop and restart the main Search service which will start host controller service as well. net stop osearch16 and net start osearch16
2. Try restarting the server and then test if not done already.
3. Sometime host controller issue occurs due to search service application issue also so you can try recreating search service application (This is applicable if it is new configuration otherwise indexed data and other managed properties will be lost).
4. Make sure you are running out of resource like CPU and memory as search host controllers has multiple processes which requires CPU and memory available to be started properly.
   Note: Never try to restart SharePoint search service and SharePoint search host controller service directly from central admin as it can cause multiple issues. You can restart same either from PowerShell (with caution) or restart from Windows services console (Services.msc) which is most safest way to restart the service.

Answer 2

If you do a fresh install, you might hit this known issue:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/support/administration/administration-tool-stopped-working-during-a-slipstream-installation