Android – NullPointerException on SearchView in Action Bar

Try to replace the failing line with:

mSearchMenuItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
mSearchView = (EnglishVerbSearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(mSearchMenuItem);

Where R.id.action_search is the id of your search item in the menu.

EDIT

Your manifest should look like that:

<activity
       android:name="com.bronzelabs.twc.activities.WorkflowListActivity"
       android:label="@string/app_name"
       android:theme="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
        </intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity 
        android:name=".activities.SearchResultActivity"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light"
        android:launchMode="singleTop">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
        </intent-filter>
        <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable" android:resource="@xml/searchable"
            android:value=".activities.SearchResultActivity" />
    </activity>

The way you call setSearchableInfo is:

mSearchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(
            new ComponentName(getApplicationContext(), SearchResultActivity.class)));

EDIT 2

Make sure your menu xml file is like that (pay attention to those 2 attributes with yourapp namespace – this is needed when you use the compat library):

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >
    <item android:id="@+id/action_search"
      android:title="@string/action_search"
      android:icon="@drawable/action_search"
      yourapp:showAsAction="always|collapseActionView"
      yourapp:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView" />
</menu>