Cannot Search Knowledge Articles by KB Number in One ServiceNow Instance, But It Works in Another

[pferreri]

Hello everyone, I’m facing an issue with Knowledge Management across two separate ServiceNow instances. In one instance, I can search for articles by their KB number and the results appear correctly. However, in the other instance, searching by the number returns “No results found.” Both instances should be configured similarly, but the search behaves differently. Has anyone encountered a similar problem, or could offer guidance on what settings or configurations might be causing this discrepancy? Any advice or troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated!

[Dominik Simunek]

Firstly, I would check if same search engine is used - AI Search vs Zing. This might differ for UIs (portal vs knowledge search vs global search).

Then I would check respective indexing. Is indexing all well finished and running? Can I try to re-index one KB article to test if it fixes the issue? (Attention: just a tip, do not trigger reindexing for whole table on prod without proper assessment and preparation).

Then I would check if we talk about same KB table. E.g. new KB article templates are not automatically searchable by AI search unless you configure it. Do you test on basic standard article (kb_knowledge table)?

And last, I would check if text indexing is enabled for Number field on both instances.

I hope this gives some ideas how to debug.

[Dominik Simunek]

Additional, can you search boh articles by its content? If no, then maybe check also if really both articles are published and accessible to the user.

If it is portal search, check also if the article is linked to the KB that is linked to the portal maybe?