0 STATUS REQUEST FAILED CONNECTION REFUSED

Bart

This looks like a SOLR error rather than a drupal one - there was a similar issue reported previously http://drupal.org/node/1285422

As suggested places to start looking - Check that you have SOLR setup correctly (If you intend to use SOLR? ) There is a small bit of setup / understanding of solr required to get it running the first time. Check that you are using the correct version of JAVA & SOLR. Make sure solr is started and that your firewall / IPTables allow access to the port solr is using (probably 8983 or 8080)

If you are not using SOLR / Dont want to use SOLR you can also use the drupal database search (which is not as powerful / flexible or scalable as SOLR IMO)

If you havent yet setup SOLR there are some helpful instructions at http://drupalcode.org/project/search_api_solr.git/blob_plain/refs/heads/... and the readme file on the project page - you will have to do some digging around to get it going if you havent done so before.

Make sure you have the correct versions of solrconfig.xml and scheme.xml copied into your solr directory

is solr started? ( java -jar start.jar )

In drupal / recruiter the place to get at the gui setting for search is at yoursite /admin/config/search/search_api

Failing this - give us some more information about your setup / level of experience etc

Kind regards

Fin

I recommend you to use the latest release, as there we've switched to the Search API Database backend and made Solr optional, which really eases the installation (the install instructions in the Readme need an update)
And thanks Fin for the update

I would suggest to try the database backend first (I don't think 2000 items are a problem), and if it's not fast enough, then think about another provider.
Concerning the database setup, please use the latest Recruiter release and exactly follow the update instructions.

Marking as fixed, because I think the issue has already been answered with my last comment.