I've noticed the same error more and more over the past few days. Today, I couldn't get any search results at all. I "reset the search configuration" on the General properties tab, but it didn't help.
Does anyone know if the search service is being worked on and/or when it will return?
there was several hours long power outage on a search service location, normally i switch to backup configuration, but at that very time i had no access to the internet.