How to show Search API search box? No block available, nothing from I'm updating a site to use Search API (with Search API DB) instead of the built-in search module. I've set up my Search API server and search, indexed everything, and now am just trying to replace the old search box with the new one in the theme.

But I can't find any way to do this.

Before disabling the built in search module, there was only one search block. After disabling, there are none, including after clearing caches. According to Integrate core search block with search_api and Solr and various other sources, I should get a search block automatically, but I don't.

Before, I got the search box into my template .tpl file with &lt;?php print render($search_box); ?&gt;. After, this throws an error.

I can't find anything on what to use instead, and the relevant documentation page about search forms talks only about search results pages, not about how to put a search box on other pages. I'm confused at how hard it is to find how to do something so basic. I can't find anything about how to find the code to either populate this variable in template.php or access any inbuilt template variable. 

How do I show a basic search block on the front page that integrates with search api? is similar but the asker reports its answer doesn't work, and I'm not fussy about whether it's specifically a block or specifically on the front page or connected to a view, I just want the search input element.

How do I add a Search API search box to a theme? How do I make it generate the block or load the search box from code?
Maybe not the best option, but to get a usable Search Block from the Views module (that includes the Search API Views submodule), you need to activate the "Expose Form >> Exposed form in block" option in your Views advanced configuration. This is what it looks like:



Good luck!