@michoel yeah log is a wrapper function. here is a snippet not wrapped that I just ran:

var custColumns2 = [];
        custColumns2.push(new nlobjSearchColumn('internalid', null, null).setSort(false));
        custColumns2.push(new nlobjSearchColumn('subsidiary'));
        custColumns2.push(new nlobjSearchColumn('currency'));
        nlapiLogExecution('DEBUG', "nlapi log custColumns2", JSON.stringify(custColumns2));
        var custRecs2 = nlapiSearchRecord('customer', null, custFilters2, custColumns2);
        log("debug", "post search");

So we never get to the post search. but the interesting bit is that the output of

nlapiLogExecution('DEBUG', "nlapi log custColumns2", JSON.stringify(custColumns2));

is

"nlapi log custColumns2", "[{},{},{}]"

All the search objects are empty. so when we call nlapiSearchRecord its like were asking for no columns and errors out. Any thoughts? do we need to enable suitescript 1.0 search or something? search in suitescript 2.0 works just fine.