I have just migrated a site structure (code and templates) to a live (dev account) to continue its development.
I still have a separate local copy running on my local machine so I can develop in multiple stages.

First you should know that this new build is running on the default data that was inserted in dev/build most every thing seems ok (I did have to do this one fileupload fix: http://silverstripe.org/general-questions/show/281744?start=16)

NOW the problem I am facing is that my search field returns an error. Where it is working fine on my local machine.
the error is basic:

There has been an error
The website server has not been able to respond to your request.Code 

I am guessing that in this live mode I have less debugging, so I ask first what are my options for enhanced debugging on a live server, and 2 does anyone know what might be causing the search to fail when move to a new machine?

OK, I should mention that I am using SS 2.4 stable.
Since I couldn't figure it out... I thought I would go through the tutorial on adding search.
http://doc.silverstripe.org/tutorial:4-site-search

this was a good plan since it seems that you now need to add a setting to your config file for search to be active.. strangley it works without on my local dev machine??

add FulltextSearchable::enable(); to your config to enable the search feature.