SharePoint search does not surface all files which match search text

Question

Here is a revised summary of the issue:

• SharePoint Online library has 6963 items.
• Column EnterpriseMemberID is part of a content type which the library uses.
• Managed Property RefinableString00 is mapped to crawled property EnterpriseMemberID (OWS_ENTERPRISEMEMBERID) and has alias ENTERPRISEMEMBERID.
• When we go to the library and search via SharePoint search and enter a valid EnterpriseMemberID as a search term, we get search results for some EnterpriseMemberID values but not for others.
• If we filter the EnterpriseMemberID for an item which does not return search results, we do see the item in the filtered items list and if we select it, we see the item in the library.
• If we create a limited view which includes EnterpriseMemberID values which do not return search results and search for them in the limited view, we still do not get search results. I did this to prove that the 5000 item view limit is not causing this issue.
• We have reindexed the library and the site twice. That had no effect.
• We have another library in another site collection which uses this same content type and is having no issues with EnterpriseMemberID.
• We discovered this issue when implementing a search page on a separate site using PnP Modern Search web parts. Those search results exhibited the same behavior described above. For that reason, we don't believe the issue is due to PnP Modern Search, but instead is an issue with SharePoint search.

Does anyone have any ideas? TIA.

Answer 1

Hi @Rinke, James,

I have several questions to confirm with you:

1. Does the number of items in this library exceed the list view threshold 5000?
2. Did you apply any filter to your PnP search web part?
3. If reindexing the library and wait for the crawl, will this issue be fixed?

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Answer 2

Just a suggestion from one of the maintainers of the PnP modern search web parts, ask the question in the GitHub repository instead. We can't monitor all of the social media so we focus on the repository