There are atleast two search elements in the UI. The one Im refering to for this case is the one located in the top menu. (The magnifying glass)

The issue is that "nothing" happens when you click on the magnifying glass.

Some debugging steps I have been through:

• Created a new alloy app (MVC), and then tested that search. And it works.. 

This led me to start comparing things..

I opened the chrome devtools to see exactly what happens when you click the magnifying glass. And here we have some difference in the behavior between the Alloy App and my app. As soon as you click the magnifying glass, a request is done towards: ~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index?searchArea=null

In the alloy case, that endpoint returns some markup. But for my app, the response is completly empty.

My App:

Alloy:

Verbose logging output result is:

2018-05-18 12:53:19,974 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ModuleRouteCollection: Not routing '~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index' since it doesn't start with '~/EPiServer/CMS/11.4.4'
2018-05-18 12:53:19,976 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ModuleRouteCollection: Not routing '~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index' since it doesn't start with '~/EPiServer/Shell/11.4.4'
2018-05-18 12:53:19,977 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ModuleRouteCollection: Not routing '~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index' since it doesn't start with '~/EPiServer/EPiServer.Cms.TinyMce/2.1.2'
2018-05-18 12:53:19,978 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ModuleRouteCollection: Not routing '~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index' since it doesn't start with '~/EPiServer/EPiServer.Packaging.UI/3.4.0.0'
2018-05-18 12:53:19,981 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ModuleRouteCollection: Not routing '~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index' since it doesn't start with '~/EPiServer/EPiServer.Search.Cms'
2018-05-18 12:53:19,982 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ModuleRouteCollection: Found route with values moduleArea=shell, controller=Search, action=Index, id= for path:~/EPiServer/shell/Search/Index
2018-05-18 12:53:19,983 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Mvc.ModuleControllerFactory: Creating controller 'Search' with type: EPiServer.Shell.UI.Controllers.EPiSearchController
2018-05-18 12:53:19,984 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Mvc.ModuleMvcHandler: Resolved 'Search' to controller: EPiServer.Shell.UI.Controllers.EPiSearchController
2018-05-18 12:53:19,989 [25] INFO EPiServer.Shell.Search.SearchProvidersManager: Listing search providers within search area: null
2018-05-18 12:53:19,990 [25] INFO EPiServer.Shell.Search.SearchProvidersManager: Loading search settings
2018-05-18 12:53:19,993 [25] TRACE EPiServer.Data.Providers.Internal.SqlDatabaseExecutor: Initializing a new instance of SqlDatabaseHandler
2018-05-18 12:53:19,996 [25] TRACE EPiServer.Data.Providers.Internal.SqlDatabaseExecutor: Opening a new transaction-less connection
2018-05-18 12:53:19,999 [25] TRACE EPiServer.Data.Providers.Internal.ConnectionContext: Opening Connection
2018-05-18 12:53:20,004 [25] TRACE EPiServer.Data.Providers.Internal.ConnectionContext: Closing Connection
2018-05-18 12:53:20,006 [25] DEBUG EPiServer.Shell.Web.Mvc.ModuleViewEngineCollection: Returning view engine for module: [ShellModule Name='Shell' RouteBasePath='EPiServer/' ResourceBasePath='/EPiServer/Shell/' ClientResourcePath='/EPiServer/Shell/11.4.4/' Assemblies=[EPiServer.Shell, EPiServer.Shell.UI, EPiServer.ApplicationModules] Controllers=[ComponentCategoryStore, ComponentDefinitionStore, ComponentSortOrderStore, ComponentStore, ContextStore, LicenseInformationStore, MetadataStore, ProfileStore, SearchProviderStore, SearchResultStore, SelectionQueryStore, UIDescriptorStore, LicenseInformationStore, EPiAboutController, EPiDashboardController, EPiDebugController, EPiDefaultShellModuleController, EPiLicensingController, EPiMetadataManagerController, EPiResourcesController, EPiSearchController, EPiSettingsController, PreviewUnavailableController, VisitorGroupsStatisticsController]]
2018-05-18 12:53:22,908 [45] DEBUG EPiServer.Search.Internal.RequestQueueHandler: Start dequeue unprocessed items
2018-05-18 12:53:22,910 [45] TRACE EPiServer.Data.Providers.Internal.SqlDatabaseExecutor: Opening a new transaction-less connection
2018-05-18 12:53:22,913 [45] TRACE EPiServer.Data.Providers.Internal.ConnectionContext: Opening Connection
2018-05-18 12:53:22,934 [45] DEBUG EPiServer.Data.Dynamic.Providers.Internal.DbDataStoreProvider: LINQ Expression:
value(EPiServer.Data.Dynamic.Internal.DynamicDataStoreOrderedQueryable`1[EPiServer.Search.Data.IndexRequestQueueItem]).Where(queueItem => (queueItem.NamedIndexingService == value(EPiServer.Search.Internal.RequestQueue+<>c__DisplayClass4_0).namedIndexingService))
value(EPiServer.Data.Dynamic.Providers.Internal.SqlServerQueryProvider`1[EPiServer.Search.Data.IndexRequestQueueItem]).OrderBy(queueItem => queueItem.Timestamp)
value(EPiServer.Data.Dynamic.Providers.Internal.SqlServerQueryProvider`1[EPiServer.Search.Data.IndexRequestQueueItem]).Take(50)
Generated SQL: SELECT "Id" FROM ( SELECT "IndexRequestQueueDataStore".Id, Row_Number() OVER (ORDER BY "IndexRequestQueueDataStore".[Timestamp] ASC) FROM  [dbo].[VW_IndexRequestQueueDataStore] as "IndexRequestQueueDataStore"   WHERE "IndexRequestQueueDataStore".[NamedIndexingService]  =  @Param0) AS InnerSelect("Id", [Row_Number()]) WHERE [Row_Number()] BETWEEN 1 AND 50

Did I install EPiServer.Search incorrectly? The thing is that the search component which is located just above the EPiServer content-tree 

Is working just fine 

We did upgrade from 10 => 11 a while back ago, could that be the issue?
I have diffed the Alloy Web.config with ours, not much is different there..
I have tested to run our app with the alloy database (same result)
I have tested to run the alloy with our database (the search still works)

I'm rather new to EPi, and I feel like I have exhausted the debugging steps that I can think of. If you have anything you want me to test, just shoot and I'll test asap.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Thank you