Tuesday, December 22, 2015

SharePoint 2013: You don't appear to have permission to view the account credentials for this result source

Problem

You navigate to the Result Sources page of a site collection (Site Settings > Site Collection Administration > Search Result Sources).  You then click on one of the result sources listed and then observe this error message:
This error message is confusing in that you are logged in using an account that has both farm administration and site collection administrator privileges.  The key terms in this error message that actually point to the solution lie at the end of the third sentence: "...at that level."
 
Result sources created at the farm administration level, i.e., through Central Administration, can only be edited at that level.  Result sources created at the farm level will be visible both at that level and at the site collection level.  Result sources created at the site collection level will only be visible and editable at the site collection level.  The level at which a result source is created can be seen on the Result Sources page, which will present somewhat different categorizations depending on whether you are viewing this page through the Search Service (farm level) or site collection settings:
 
Search Service: Manage Result Sources (farm level)
  • Defined for this search service
  • Provided by SharePoint
 Result Sources (site collection level)
  • Defined for this site collection
  • Provided by the search service
  • Provided by SharePoint

Solution

  • If you created the result source through the search service's Manage Result Sources page, navigate back to that page to edit the result source.
  • If you created the result source at the site collection level, navigate to the site collection's Search Result Sources page to edit the result source.

References

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi:

I created a site collection with a custom result source so that the results will only look at the site collection. This site collection is to be used as a template for creating other site collections (via Powershell Backup-SPSite and Restore-SPSite). I am getting the same "warning" when trying to edit the result source and it doesn't appear like I can edit this result source after the Restore-SPSite as it looked as if it converted my custom result source into the "Local SharePoint Results" result source.

"You don't appear to have permission to view the account credentials for this result source."

Thoughts?

Thank you!

Al said...

As I understand it, you: 1) created a site collection, 2) created a result source within the scope of that site collection, 3) exported the site collection, 4) imported the site collection to a new web application, and then 5) attempted to edit the custom result source? Is that correct?

Unknown said...

I have a site collection where I had already configured a "default" result source so that the search results will look at the site collection first. When I create a totally new site collection by using backup and restore powershell commands...the result source "disappeared." It actually become the "Local Sharepoint Results" and you can only view it.

The only way I can "preserve" the original search settings and result source is by exporting and re-importing the search configuration.

Al said...

If I understand you correctly, you performed a search configuration export using [Site collection] > Settings > Site Settings > Site Collection Administration > Search Configuration Export. I'm not familiar with this capability, not having used it previously. However, this TechNet posting seems to engage precisely this topic: Export and import customized search configuration settings in SharePoint Server 2013.