Hi,

Is anybody experiencing issues with their SharePoint 2013 help search system (accessed by pressing the question mark icon in the top right of the standard master page?  The help dialogue box appears OK, however, when trying to search for text I get a 404 back from the content plane.  The URL of a search goes to this location  https://o15.officeredir.microsoft.com/r/rlidServerAppSearch15?p1=monkey&p2=WSSEndUser&p3=1033&kip=1

This redirects to https://office.microsoft.com/client/15/serverhelp/results?qu=monkey&products=WSSEndUser&lcid=1033&SYSLCID=1033&UILCID=1033&Version=15

Obviously 'monkey' is example text of a search, just wondered if this was most likely a configuration issue with our farm of if Microsoft have moved the help resources?

Thanks in advances.

Hi,

Same issue here, i have already open a support case at Microsoft this morning.

This issue occurs on all my SharePoint

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, please let me know how it goes - I'll mark it as answered if we can confirm if it's a configuration issue or a Microsoft issue.

Regards

run Install-SPHelpCollection -All

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607637(v=office.15).aspx

I can confirm that it is broken in multiple 2010 and 2013 environments that I have access to. Running the cmdlet above did not address the issue.

Are you getting any correlation ID?

Hi,

Whilst this is quite a useful 'workaround' if we can confirm it works, it doesn't answer the question of whether the live content that is provided by Microsoft for default installations is just missing or whether we need to change the configuration of our farms to point to a new location.

A few days after the posting of this issue the 404 was replaced by a message saying that I may be looking for content that has moved.  So it could be that a) MS realised there is a problem with their live help (i.e. it is missing/moved) and that customers using an old? configuration just got a 404 which looks bad b) they accidentally removed the live help and are working to replace it.

Our SharePoint developer pointed out there are more benefits of using 'Live' help from Microsoft over using a local copy.  The main advantage being that the content can be changed to reflect changes to the farm if subsequent patches/updates change functionality.

I too have had no luck running the PowerShell command on multiple 2013 environments. Still getting the 404 error.

Hi,

Whilst this is quite a useful 'workaround' if we can confirm it works, it doesn't answer the question of whether the live content that is provided by Microsoft for default installations is just missing or whether we need to change the configuration of our farms to point to a new location.

A few days after the posting of this issue the 404 was replaced by a message saying that I may be looking for content that has moved.  So it could be that a) MS realised there is a problem with their live help (i.e. it is missing/moved) and that customers using an old? configuration just got a 404 which looks bad b) they accidentally removed the live help and are working to replace it.

Our SharePoint developer pointed out there are more benefits of using 'Live' help from Microsoft over using a local copy.  The main advantage being that the content can be changed to reflect changes to the farm if subsequent patches/updates change functionality.

Getting same result the page opens, after running the powershell or psconfig, but the page shows this

Hello guys,

Here the feedback from Microsoft about my support case :

"Regarding your concern with SharePoint, I can inform you that this is a general concern, and that is not from your system or configuration. We are working on this issue to try to find a solution as quickly as possible. One way to solve temporarily, in some cases, this concern would be as follows (with SharePoint 2010 she normally works well with SharePoint 2013, only in some cases):

  1. Go to central admin url and replace "default.apx" by_admin/privacy.aspx

2. Display Help from external Web Sites as specified by each Help collection  and click  No

This will allow to use local SharePoint help, not online help untill wi fix this issue.

It seems to be fixed now. Do we have a confirmation?

Doesn't work for me still getting the multi language apology :-(

but could be my proxy caching the old page so I'll give it a day or so

The url is:

http://office.microsoft.com/client/15/serverhelp/results?qu=test&products=SFEndUser&lcid=1033&SYSLCID=1033&UILCID=1033&Version=15

I used 'test' to search instead of 'monkey'

• Edited by Avantegarde-a-clue 38 minutes ago

Hi,

I can confirm it's now working for us, with the search text 'test' and 'monkey'!  Brilliant, thanks for everyone's help.

Regards

Doesn't work for me still getting the multi language apology :-(

but could be my proxy caching the old page so I'll give it a day or so

The url is:

http://office.microsoft.com/client/15/serverhelp/results?qu=test&products=SFEndUser&lcid=1033&SYSLCID=1033&UILCID=1033&Version=15

I used 'test' to search instead of 'monkey'

• Edited by Avantegarde-a-clue Monday, February 09, 2015 11:05 AM

Doesn't work for me still getting the multi language apology :-(

but could be my proxy caching the old page so I'll give it a day or so

The url is:

http://office.microsoft.com/client/15/serverhelp/results?qu=test&products=SFEndUser&lcid=1033&SYSLCID=1033&UILCID=1033&Version=15

I used 'test' to search instead of 'monkey'

• Edited by Avantegarde-a-clue Monday, February 09, 2015 11:05 AM

Bypassed the proxy and copied the link to a live internet connection and still we get the 

"Sorry, thepage you're looking for can't be found."

Is it a regional thing? how come some of you get it working - what countries are you in?

My Sharepoint search urls go to office.microsoft.com/etc....  that gives me the multilanguage search error message

if I use your first ur;, the o15.officeredir.microsoft.com/r/etc.....   it works and say 'no results for monkey'

Is there anywhere we can change the default search url in the registry or something?