Sorry, we're having trouble reaching the server

I recently set up a SharePoint Server and every time I attempted to use the People Picker, I got the dreaded message "Sorry, we're having trouble reaching the server."

I looked at a wide variety of articles concerning this issue and our particular issue had nothing to do with memory allocated to the server, so I began investigating other solutions.

Since we were using Disjoint Namespaces in our Active Directory domain, I figured there might be a problem with the People Picker due to this.

Fortunately, I came across this SharePoint article:  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg602075.aspx

Now, I LOVE PowerShell, so I was not about to resort to the command line to execute these commands, so I created my own version of the PowerShell commands:

$STSADMPath = @"

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\BIN\STSADM.EXE"

"@

$SPPassword = "P@ssw0rd"

$STSSetPasswordCmd = "cmd /c $STSADMPath -o setapppassword -password $SPPassword"

Write-Host $STSSetPasswordCmd

Invoke-Expression -Command $STSSetPasswordCmd

$STSADMPath = @"

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\BIN\STSADM.EXE"

"@

$SharePointUrl = "https://sharepointdev.mycompany.com"

$DomainName = "dev.mycompany.com"

$LoginName = "mycompanydev\shareptadmin"

$LoginPwd = "P@ssw0rd"

$STSSetPeoplePickerCmd = @"

cmd /c $STSADMPath -o setproperty -url $SharePointUrl -pn peoplepicker-searchadforests -pv "domain:$DomainName,$LoginName,$LoginPwd"

"@

Clear-Host

Write-Host $STSSetPeoplePickerCmd

Invoke-Expression -Command $STSSetPeoplePickerCmd

Once I ran the STSADM People Picker command, my People Picker issue was resolved!!