Changing action bar searchview hint text color

android:actionBarWidgetTheme of your main theme should point to a style that has a android:textColorHint in it. That one will allow changing the hint text color of the search view.

searchView.setQueryHint(Html.fromHtml("<font color = #ffffff>" + getResources().getString(R.string.hintSearchMess) + "</font>"));

SearchView searchView= (SearchView) findViewById(R.id.searchView1);
int id = searchView.getContext()
                   .getResources()
                   .getIdentifier("android:id/search_src_text", null, null);
TextView textView = (TextView) searchView.findViewById(id);
textView.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);

this worked for me, hope it helps

((EditText) searchView.findViewById(android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.search_src_text)).setHintTextColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.white));

also see this

I resolved it adding this property to the main theme:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">
    .....
    .....
    <item name="android:actionBarWidgetTheme">@style/MyActionBarWidgetTheme</item> 
</style>

And then add the property i want to change in this case the hint color.

<style name="MyActionBarWidgetTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo">
    .....
    .....
    <item name="android:textColorHint">@color/blanco_60</item>
</style>

Hope it helps :D