I had the same problem and it nearly killed me too. But look in templates/container.tpl by brightside a bit down below this:<!-- BEGIN SEARCH_FORM --> you probably find this: <input type="text" size="20" name="sWord" id="$lang[search]" value="$sWord" class="input" maxlength="100" /> Try this instead: <input type="text" size="20" name="sPhrase" id="$lang[search]" value="$sPhrase" class="input" maxlength="100" /> You see in Brightside uses the wrong name and value. Name must be "sPhrase" and the value must be "$sPhrase" according to Opensolutions default container.tpl. Hope this will help you.