Originally Posted by
lat9
Do you have a customized template? The Instant Search plugin's jQuery/javascript is looking for changes to, by default, an input field named 'keyword' in order to send changes from that keyword-entry back to the site to gather matching products.
FWIW, the default responsive_classic uses the template_default/sideboxes/tpl_search.php and tpl_search_header.php to render the search-related sideboxes'. In both cases, an input field named 'keyword' is created to accept the customer's search keywords.