diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 888e718d1e84..97f9f660d162 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -3127,6 +3127,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "tabby-scheduler",
  "tantivy",
  "textdistance",
+ "thiserror",
  "tokio",
  "tower",
  "tower-http 0.4.0",
@@ -3400,18 +3401,18 @@ checksum = "d321c8576c2b47e43953e9cce236550d4cd6af0a6ce518fe084340082ca6037b"
 
 [[package]]
 name = "thiserror"
-version = "1.0.45"
+version = "1.0.49"
 source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
-checksum = "dedd246497092a89beedfe2c9f176d44c1b672ea6090edc20544ade01fbb7ea0"
+checksum = "1177e8c6d7ede7afde3585fd2513e611227efd6481bd78d2e82ba1ce16557ed4"
 dependencies = [
  "thiserror-impl",
 ]
 
 [[package]]
 name = "thiserror-impl"
-version = "1.0.45"
+version = "1.0.49"
 source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
-checksum = "7d7b1fadccbbc7e19ea64708629f9d8dccd007c260d66485f20a6d41bc1cf4b3"
+checksum = "10712f02019e9288794769fba95cd6847df9874d49d871d062172f9dd41bc4cc"
 dependencies = [
  "proc-macro2",
  "quote",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index bb913941b7f3..f0d25cd78b48 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -37,3 +37,4 @@ tokenizers = "0.13.4-rc3"
 futures = "0.3.28"
 async-stream = "0.3.5"
 regex = "1.10.0"
+thiserror = "1.0.49"
diff --git a/crates/tabby/Cargo.toml b/crates/tabby/Cargo.toml
index 6f75c887bfdc..2076f73b67c2 100644
--- a/crates/tabby/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/tabby/Cargo.toml
@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ axum-streams = { version = "0.9.1", features = ["json"] }
 minijinja = { version = "1.0.8", features = ["loader"] }
 textdistance = "1.0.2"
 regex.workspace = true
+thiserror.workspace = true
 
 [target.'cfg(all(target_os="macos", target_arch="aarch64"))'.dependencies]
 llama-cpp-bindings = { path = "../llama-cpp-bindings" }
diff --git a/crates/tabby/src/serve/completions/prompt.rs b/crates/tabby/src/serve/completions/prompt.rs
index 1825f4b2b60d..276e15ab2f9c 100644
--- a/crates/tabby/src/serve/completions/prompt.rs
+++ b/crates/tabby/src/serve/completions/prompt.rs
@@ -7,7 +7,10 @@ use textdistance::Algorithm;
 use tracing::warn;
 
 use super::{Segments, Snippet};
-use crate::serve::{completions::languages::get_language, search::IndexServer};
+use crate::serve::{
+    completions::languages::get_language,
+    search::{IndexServer, IndexServerError},
+};
 
 static MAX_SNIPPETS_TO_FETCH: usize = 20;
 static MAX_SNIPPET_CHARS_IN_PROMPT: usize = 768;
@@ -109,7 +112,11 @@ fn collect_snippets(index_server: &IndexServer, language: &str, text: &str) -> V
 
     let serp = match index_server.search(&query_text, MAX_SNIPPETS_TO_FETCH, 0) {
         Ok(serp) => serp,
-        Err(err) => {
+        Err(IndexServerError::NotReady) => {
+            // Ignore.
+            return vec![];
+        }
+        Err(IndexServerError::TantivyError(err)) => {
             warn!("Failed to search query: {}", err);
             return ret;
         }
diff --git a/crates/tabby/src/serve/search.rs b/crates/tabby/src/serve/search.rs
index 87a37d758cda..f8249a20d024 100644
--- a/crates/tabby/src/serve/search.rs
+++ b/crates/tabby/src/serve/search.rs
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ use tantivy::{
     schema::Field,
     DocAddress, Document, Index, IndexReader,
 };
+use thiserror::Error;
 use tokio::{sync::OnceCell, task, time::sleep};
 use tracing::{debug, instrument, log::info};
 use utoipa::{IntoParams, ToSchema};
@@ -198,11 +199,25 @@ impl IndexServer {
         }
     }
 
-    pub fn search(&self, q: &str, limit: usize, offset: usize) -> tantivy::Result<SearchResponse> {
+    pub fn search(
+        &self,
+        q: &str,
+        limit: usize,
+        offset: usize,
+    ) -> Result<SearchResponse, IndexServerError> {
         if let Some(imp) = self.get_cell() {
-            imp.search(q, limit, offset)
+            Ok(imp.search(q, limit, offset)?)
         } else {
-            Err(tantivy::TantivyError::InternalError("Not Ready".to_owned()))
+            Err(IndexServerError::NotReady)
         }
     }
 }
+
+#[derive(Error, Debug)]
+pub enum IndexServerError {
+    #[error("index not ready")]
+    NotReady,
+
+    #[error("underlying tantivy error")]
+    TantivyError(#[from] tantivy::TantivyError),
+}