WSOD on Product Collection Views

I'm new to posting issues so please bear with me... I'm not sure if this belongs with Commerce Kickstart or with Search API.

I have the latest version of Commerce Kickstart installed and despite fresh installs, searching and running patches on Search API, I keep getting a WSOD on all of the Commerce Kickstart product collection views (mysite.com/products).
After enabling error reporting on the page, I've gotten the following sets of errors on the product display pages:

First, I received this error:
SearchApiException: Unknown server frontend specified for index product_display. in SearchApiIndex->server() (line 374 of \profiles\commerce_kickstart\modules\contrib\search_api\includes\index_entity.inc).

After finding a patch solution for this (https://drupal.org/node/1879196), I now still receive a WSOD with the following error on the same collection views:
Fatal error: Call to a member function getOption() on a non-object in \profiles\commerce_kickstart\modules\contrib\search_api\contrib\search_api_views\includes\query.inc on line 251

For reference, query.inc line 251 is as follows:

246 // Initialize the pager and let it modify the query to add limits.
247 $view->init_pager();
248 $this->pager->query();
249
250 // Set the search ID, if it was not already set.
251 if ($this->query->getOption('search id') == get_class($this->query)) {
252 $this->query->setOption('search id', 'search_api_views:' . $view->name . ':' . $view->current_display);
253 }
254
255 // Add the "search_api_bypass_access" option to the query, if desired.
256 if (!empty($this->options['search_api_bypass_access'])) {
257 $this->query->setOption('search_api_bypass_access', TRUE);
258 }

I'm running MySQL 5.6.11, PHP 5.4.15, the latest distro of Commerce Kickstarter (7.x-2.12).
I didn't run in to any issues during installation and don't have any other errors other than the Search API related errors.

Occasionally, by re-uploading or running a new patch on Search API, the site will begin to work again. However after a period of time, the same error messages will arise again. Additionally - when this happens, Rules, Views, and the Search API module stop working. When I try to click on the Server or Index for instance, in the Search API module, I will receive a page not found error. The same happens when I try to edit a View or a Rule. So in summary - when the product collection view pages are working, so are the admin modules for Search API, Rules and Views. When they are not working, neither are those modules and I receive a Page Not Found error.

This also may be a side error and unrelated - but in the Admin Menu of Commerce Kickstart, I see Commerce Search as an option. When I click on this, I get the message that I do not have Administrative Rights to use this feature, even though I am logged in as the Admin. Is this normal?