SharePoint Advanced Search 404File Not Found

have you created a search center site?

Yes. It was working. I had the site collection at intranet. domainname.com/sites/sitename. I also had some permission issues. I solved the permission problems and moved the site to intranet.domainname.com/sitename. Problem is that I do not know if the search broke before or after these changes. Regular search works and the rest of the site collection is fine. I used the export/import commands from the command line to move the site collection. It is just the advanced search page that gives the 404 error.

could you take a look or post the ULS logs from a time that you create the error message again?
The logs can be found in c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\logs

The log at the time of the error is empty. It is 0kb. However, I did notice why the the error is coming up. The advanced search page is referencing the old location at intranet.domain name.com/sites/search/advanced.aspx and it should be intranet.domain name.com/search/advanced.aspx. Know how get that back to the root level?

Without looking....forgive me if its wrong. But go to site actions site settings then under site collection administration search settings and I think its in there.

I can't find anything to allow me to movethe Search site to the root level. Two thoughts. What about Reset site definition for the search site, or delete the search site and re-create it?

oh you want to move the search site to the root. I'm sorry I thought you wanted to change the pointer to point it to wherever your search center was located. The site collection administration steps above will allow you to point to it at the sub site level. In order to move it you would need to do the backup/restore export/import method. It would probably be easier and better to just delete and recreate.

Well as I said, I just went through the export/import to move the collection to the root. Some of the search site links are not referenceing the root, still looking for the old location. Everything else in the collection references the root. I do not want to redo the export/import. Since it is just the search site, that is why I am thinking it may be better to delete the search site and then recreate it.

and recreate it back in its old location? That is an option

But if you think you are going to recreate at the root level and the links are going to auto update that isn't going to work. When you go into site actions, site settings, under site collection administration there is a search settings link. Once in there the top section "Site Collection Search Center" you can choose the option to enable custom scopes and put the location of your search center. This will fix the broken links for all search boxes in this collection. You would have to make this change for each site collection having the issue though.

I only have one site collection. The search site for this collection was moved in the export/import to the rrot level, but some links did come back correctly (advanced search). I was saying delete this search site for this one collection(now at the root level) and create a new search site for this collection at the root level. Kind of like starting from scratch with the search site and I would have to recreate my crawl locations.

I am going to delete and recreate and reset the crawls. Just to get this clarified. You stated "Your site collection thinks its in a different place and it will continue to do that until you tell it it is somewhere else." Eventhough I moved the search site it does work, it is that some links are broken when navigating. I can get to the URL of advanced search by manually typing it in but not by clicking the link. So I will still have to go to the Central Admin page once I delete the site and recreatethe new one on the new collection already at the root?

I deleted and recreated the site. I did not have to do anything else. Everything is working. What appeared to be actually broken was just the URL links on the search site. When recreated they all referenced the root site.