Scope in your query does not exist

Configuration

On some occasions, it can happen that Search & Preview Search will display “Scope in your query does not exist” message instead of search results.

Background information:
Each search query is made in the context of a specific search scope. The scopes are defined in SharePoint and are named in the language of the base SharePoint installation. The naming of scopes can get confusing if there are additional SharePoint language packs installed on top of the base installation. In particular, the “Scope in your query does not exist” message will be shown on the People search tab, if the search center was created in a different language than the base SharePoint installation.

For example, let’s consider the situation where a German SharePoint has English language pack installed, and on such environment, an English Search & Preview Search Center template is used to create the search center. In German SharePoint, the people scope is called “Personen”. By default, an English Search & Preview Search Center will execute queries using scope called “People”. Since “People” scope does not exist in the German SharePoint installation, the mentioned error will be shown.

Solution 1 (recommended):

1. Go to Site Actions > Edit page and click on “Configure this Search Result Web part”.
2. Under the Search Scopes settings group, ensure that Search Scope Mode is set to “Use fixed Search Scope” and that Fixed Search Scope is set to the scope that represents people scope in the version of SharePoint used. (The correct setting will most likely be already loaded from SharePoint so no changes might be required.)
3. Select the OK button at the bottom of the page, even if the correct settings were already shown. The settings were first time loaded upon opening of the configuration page and therefore they need to be applied with the OK button.
   

Solution 2:

1. Go to Site Actions > Edit page and click on “Configure this Search Result Web part”.
2. Under the Search Scopes setting group, set Search Scope Mode to “Use Search Scope from URL” and select “None” as default search scope.
3. Under the Fixed Search setting group, set Mode of Operation to “Add fixed Search to active search” and type the following expression in the below field: “scope=people”, where the word “people” should be replaced with the name of people scope in the SharePoint used, e.g. scope=personen when using a German SharePoint.
4. Select the OK button at the bottom of the page.