In the case of a search service disruption the status updates will be shown here.
05 Jun 26: there was an initial issue with v7.8.1 release because the newer protocol server version was taken by google chrome from cache rather than downloaded for real so I reversed the release temporarily since it got me confused until I figured out the banal cause.
I've been trying to use the search service for several hours now and I get the message box "Search Failed A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or"
i had a tech out to the house to install new internet service. It's still running off of the old one which is working fine, but one of the servers is now offline. He may have bumped it or done something else stupid. I should be home in 2 or so hours and check out what's up with the server.
Stupid tech decided to use one of the servers for the new internet (even with HUGE signs saying DON'T TOUCH on it) so essentially it was disconnected. All fixed.
search service monitor is not currently running (since yesterday), so i couldn't detect it in time, in one week the monitoring will be resumed, until then i'll be checking it twice daily, probability of those events is small.