Android: getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()) returning null?

At least one of your activities - the one you're doing the searching from is sufficient - must have this intent-filter in it in the manifest:

<intent-filter>
  <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
</intent-filter>

If not, then searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()) always returns null, and your configuration is ignored.

This killed me for a day - I thought it was ActionBarSherlock-related, but no it works fine with that. The problem was that I was trying to short-circuit the sample, as you have too :-)

I think your approach is wrong. You should have 2 activities - 1: Main activity which has as SearchView (on ActionBar or layout) and 2: SearchActivity which will be started when search is performed.

Maybe you can also do it like that but Im not sure. Where would you like to recive ACTION_SEARCH intent in your approach? Normally you do that in OnCreate in your searchActivity like that:

Intent intent = getIntent();
if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH.equals(intent.getAction())) {
  String query = intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY);
  System.out.println("searching for: " + query);
}

I did it on two activites and it worked for me. One additional thing I had to do and I didn't find in Android Search Tutorial was adding:

<meta-data
android:name="android.app.default_searchable"
android:value=".SearchableActivity" />

In manifest for my MainActivity

Your searchable.xml contains string literals (hint and label), they should be references. That's what make it fail according to this: SearchInfo always coming out null