The protocol handler cannot be found. Check that the handler has been installed.

Troubleshooting:

Ø  We could see that the Search Service was started on only 1 server

Ø  Checked the search service was started and that the indexer was assigned è all ok

Ø  Decided to move the entire search function on the other WFE in order è same behavior

Ø  Decided to run a clear configuration cache as explained here:  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/josrod/archive/2007/12/12/clear-the-sharepoint-configuration-cache-for-timer-job-and-psconfig-errors.aspx  è same behavior

Ø  Ran psconfig –cmd services install è same behavior

Ø  This had to be related to the search service.

Ø  Checked following registry keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ProtocolHandlers è OK

Ø  Checked: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Applications\<GUID> \Gather\Portal_Content\Protocolsè we were missing some entries here

Ø  Decided to register the .dll again for the search: regsvr32 "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\mssph.dll"

Ø  Restarted the search service

Ø  Started a full crawl and we could see it was crawling successfully.

Ø  Checked on the other server and we could see that the entries were missing there from the registry too.

Ø  Ran regsvr32 "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\mssph.dll"