Sharepoint Troubleshooting: The URL of the item could not be resolved. The repository might be unavailable, or the crawler proxy settings are not configured.

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Error

When you debugging your SharePoint Search you might have come across that there is an error in the crawl log in a SharePoint farm.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LcHTHjvczMU/VvEj6hwDcOI/AAAAAAAAMBo/-Q1Z26VRFn4/image_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png?imgmax=800

Error message

The URL of the item could not be resolved. The repository might be unavailable, or the crawler proxy settings are not configured. To configure the crawler proxy settings, use Search Administration page

Troubleshooting

This is because your search cannot be resolved to a particular address:

  • most probably your corporate proxy is blocking it
  • domain name resolution is not happening inside the SharePoint crawl

Resolution

The easiest way to resolve the error is:

Clear proxy

First clear any proxy settings you have specified in the search settings.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0eWba5ROuTA/VvEj7rc1XNI/AAAAAAAAMBw/DyVQ4BJ-eZ8/image_thumb%25255B4%25255D.png?imgmax=800

Content Crawling

You can go to the Crawling Proxy settings and make sure you didn't specify the proxy for content crawling.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7LBOYgapei0/VvEj8wWNlGI/AAAAAAAAMB4/7hLcP1QbRL8/image_thumb%25255B6%25255D.png?imgmax=800

Then go to each server in your farm and add the domain name entry resolution in the HOST file.

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TW_hiMNYXmY/VvEj9zHs-NI/AAAAAAAAMCA/C6Si9vFxwfo/image_thumb%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800

Now you can run the crawler again and you will see there are no top level errors in your crawl log.