Issue with Homepage Typeahead and Text Search in Custom Scoped Application

[mkm1]

We are experiencing an issue with the homepage search on our custom scoped application. The typeahead search, which was previously working, has stopped functioning and now consistently returns "No results found", even though no changes have been made to the portal or the underlying data.  Search sources built on custom tables in our scoped application. Typeahead is using default template no advanced template.

Observations:

• The Typeahead search on the homepage returns "No results found" for all inputs.

• Typing any text and clicking the search button on the homepage also does not fetch any results.

• We have regenerated the text indexes, but the issue still persists.

Verifications Performed:

1. Search Source Configuration – Verified and appears to be correct.

2. Text Index Configuration and Text Index – Regenerated the index, no change in behavior.

3. Portal Widget Settings – Settings seem to be correctly configured.

4. Security & Access Control – Verified that users have access to the records.

Request:

Could there have been any recent platform or plugin updates that might be affecting this behavior?
Also, please advise on how to further debug or troubleshoot this issue.

Screenshots from the portal search are attached for reference.

Are there any recent updates might be causing any issue? Please advise how to debug the issue any further.

[SasiChanthati]

Possible Root Causes (With Checks)

1.  Search Source Scope and Permissions

• Scoped apps must allow the sp (Service Portal) app to read your custom table.

Check:

• In your Search Source, ensure it’s not limited by scope.

• In your scoped table’s Application Access, ensure:

  • Can read and Allow access to this table via web services are checked

  • External scope read access is enabled (Can be accessed from other applications)

2. Broken or Missing Glide Text Search (Zing) Index

Even though you said you've rebuilt the text index, check if the text index is being used.

Check:

• Run a query from background script:

  var gr = new GlideRecord('<your_custom_table>'); gr.addQuery('nameCONTAINS', 'test'); gr.query(); while (gr.next()) { gs.info(gr.name); }

• If this works but the portal search does not, it confirms indexing is fine but the portal can't access or use it.

3. Check sp_search Logging

Enable debug logs to get more insight:

Add Debug Log Points:

Go to: System Logs → Debugging → Debug Log

Enable for:

• sp_search

• SearchSource

• GlideTextSearch

• Your custom table name (as a class)

Then trigger the search and check logs.

4.  Platform Changes or Plugin Impact

There are known issues in some recent releases (Tokyo+, Utah, Vancouver) where search APIs were restricted, especially across scoped boundaries or if GlideAjax or custom endpoints were used.

Check:

• Plugins updated recently: Check in System Definition → Plugins → Recently Upgraded

• Compare Search Source Behavior in Global scope: Try cloning the same search source to work against an OOB table (like incident) to validate if issue is with the table or with the engine.

5. Test Search Source Outside Portal

To rule out widget/template issues:

1. Navigate to /sp_config/?id=search_sources

2. Click your search source → Test it using the preview search function

6. Try Rebuilding a Minimal Version

Sometimes the original search source or portal widget gets corrupted.

Try:

• Duplicating the search source using a basic config.

• Creating a test portal page with only the typeahead.

• Set it to use default template.

[mkm1]

Hello SasiChanthati,

Thanks for your suggestions. We will check these and hopefully resolve the issue.

So far, we have verified that the Search Source Scope is not limited by scope. To further investigate Broken or Missing Glide Text Search (Zing) Index, we ran a query from a background script, and it worked fine, returning the correct value.

To enable debug logs and check sp_search logging, we attempted to find System Logs → Debugging → Debug Log in our vendor instance. However, we could not locate it. We have also tried accessing it as security-admin, but it’s still not available in the menu.

Attached is a screenshot of the System Logs menu. My version is Washington DC—do you have any insights on why the Debug Log option is missing?

[mkm1]

So far found two search sources out of 9 is causing the problem. If I take out these search sources, home page search work fine. Changing the order of search sources does not work. Resetting text cache didn't solve the problem. I have tried to regenerate text indexes for these two, but still problem there. Even using anyone of them in typeahead search in a page is not working.