SharePoint OnPremise application | Documents not getting searched

Question

Hi,

We have an application hosted in SharePoint On Premise server. We are using SharePoint 2013.

We have an issue in which there are some documents which are not getting searched as seen below.

Can you let us know on how the issue can be rectified ?

Regards,

Nebu Thomas Mathew

Answer 1

Hi @Nebu Mathew ,

Let's do some troubleshooting:

1, Make sure the account you used has permission to access to the file.

2, Please check whether view filter is enabled, if so, delete it and try again.

3, Please check whether the file is checked out, and if it is checked out, it cannot be searched. Please check in.

4, Please check whether you enabled Content Approval feature. If you did, the files uploaded or being revised (with Status = Pending) are only visible to those who uploaded the files and those with permissions to Approve the files. Also, if under Versioning, you opted for draft versions, you can hide draft versions from users altogether.

5, Please check whether you turn off indexing at the library or Site level. When you execute a search via a Document Library Search Box or SharePoint Site Search Box, the files show up because they are indexed. You can turn off indexing at the library or Site level. While indexing is turned off, it won’t make the files “disappear” from the document library, but they will not be searchable/discoverable via the search box. Here is how to check whether or not indexing is on or off:

Library Level: Document Library Settings > Advanced Settings > Search

Site Level: Site Settings > Search and Offline Availability (under Search) > Indexing Site Content

6, By default, the search box on a list will only return results at the folder level it was searched at - it will not return results that are inside of folders. Clicking on "include" will show the results that are deeper in the folder hierarchy.

Also, there are some additional issues with this if you have more than 5000 documents that exceed the list view threshold. The search box on a list will only query the first 5000 items from the sql database, and return up to 500 results, it will start a new cycle again on the first 5000 items rather than continue to return results on the rest of the items.

For more information, please refer to:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/enable-content-to-be-searchable-d7ba92db-8618-43fe-87ee-adf03d973062

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