Solr Requirement for Xinet Portal Browse and Search

This article explains the supported search configuration for current Xinet Portal environments and what to do if Portal browse or search returns empty results while Solr is disabled.

Overview

For supported Xinet Portal operation, Solr must be enabled.

If Solr is disabled, Portal browse and search may return empty results even when files are present on disk and database rows exist. Because of this, running Xinet Portal with Solr disabled is not a supported operating mode.

Customers should not rely on DB-backed search as a supported fallback when Solr is unavailable.

Symptoms

• Portal folders show file counts, but the browse pane is empty.
• Portal search returns no results.
• Files exist on the filesystem, but Portal does not display them.
• Solr is disabled, paused, or offline on the Xinet server.

Supported configuration

For supported Portal browse and search behavior:

• Solr must be enabled.
• Solr must be allowed to complete its initial setup and indexing.
• Solr indexing should be checked against the Venture database before further search troubleshooting.

Enable Solr

1. Log in to Xinet Administration.
2. Go to Database > Admin > searching.
3. Under Solr Searching (Portal Only):
   • click Create Solr DB if Solr has not been created yet, or
   • click Start Solr if Solr is present but paused.
4. Allow the initial indexing process to complete.

Verify Solr after enabling it

1. Open the Solr file query page:
   http://<Xinet-Server-IP>:15969/solr/#/file/query
2. Click Execute Query.
3. Record the numFound value.
4. Compare that with the Venture online-file count:

select count(*) from file where online = 1;

1. Run the following command:

/usr/etc/venture/bin/solrutil -checkdb

If the Solr count and Venture count do not match, or if solrutil -checkdb reports errors, continue with normal Solr troubleshooting rather than disabling Solr again.

What not to do

• Do not continue normal Portal browse/search troubleshooting with Solr intentionally disabled.
• Do not assume that empty Portal browse/search results with Solr disabled are a normal or supported fallback behavior.

Version note

These search-engine changes that were already in place by Xinet 2023.1.2. Earlier related changes also began in 2022, but they were not fully in place at that time.

Customers upgrading from older environments, including environments where Solr was not in active use, should plan to enable Solr on the target Xinet system and verify indexing as part of migration or post-upgrade validation.

Related articles

• Enabling and Managing SOLR for Quick Search in Xinet Portal
• Troubleshooting Article - Xinet Search
• Using the Solr Utility (solrutil)