Searching by 'Keywords' contains 'approval file' generates message 'Your text query contained only common words or ambiguous wildcards, please refine your search and try again'

[david_erickson]

One of our end users was having issues with this while trying to find incidents that contained the words. I tried a similar searches. The ones that worked:

search functionality

search approval

search file

approval functionality

approval search

Only using 'approval file' generated the message. All of my searches brought up the incident and a few other items with one or both of the words. I have not been able to find out why the partiuclar phrase 'approval file' generates the message. Can anyone help me figure out why it generates the message, and how i can make it work as it won't find the incident that has that phrase but finds other ones with different phrases.

[shruti_tyagi]

Hi David,

-- Start with to make sure your word is not listed as a stopword in table 'ts_stop'

-- If not a stop word check table 'ts_word' and search for your word in this table and see how many entries you have for this word in this table.

There is a system property 'glide.ts.max_wildcard_expansion' OOB value of this property is 500. If a wildcard search matches more words in ts_word table than this value, system displays this message you are getting.

Check the value of this property and number of entries in ts_word table.

Thanks

Shruti

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[david_erickson]

Shruti,

Thanks so much for the information. It has led me to a some more questions.

After confirming it didn't show up in the ts_stop table, I checked the other. When I look at the ts_word table, it is hidden. I set it so I could see it in our dev environment and 'approval' is less than 500 (500 is the sys property value) while file is more than 4000.

In production, searching by both words singularly results in the message, which seems to imply that they are occurring more than 500 there. I tried to search the same way in dev as not knowing if there was a reason the table was set so it could not be seen, and noticed that in our Jakarta development environment (we are testing for upgrading) there is no 'keyword' option for my search.

Is there a reason it should be hidden, as I think they are close to the same, but I cannot confirm it without making the same acl checkbox change in production?

Why would the one less than the property generate the same message?

And finally, is the fix simply to set the property to a number larger than the occurrences in the ts_word table?

Thanks in advance.

David Erickson

ServiceNow Administrator | Developer

817-525-7192 (Direct)

4001 Embarcadero Dr

Arlington, Texas 76014

david.erickson@gmfinancial.com<mailto:david.erickson@gmfinancial.com>

[shruti_tyagi]

Hey David,

1. I just checked ts_word table is only visible to maint role, so I guess thats why you are not able to see it.

2. This message usually appear when number If a wildcard search matches more words than value in 'glide.ts.max_wildcard_expansion', the system displays a message asking the user to refine the search.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/jakarta-servicenow-platform/page/administer/search-administration...https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/jakarta-servicenow-platform/page/administer/search-administration...

3. Yes for testing purpose you can try to change the value of property to 1000 and see if you are able to search. This will make sure message is appearing from the property.

Larger value for this property can cause performance impact on your instance while you search. So not recommend to have really high value you need to see best for your instance.

Thanks

Shruti

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[shruti_tyagi · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

I forgot to mention about table 'ts_index_stop' This is stop word table when stop word auto-generate when they reach threshold.

Open this table and search for your word. If your word is there change stop mode to Not a stop word. If your current stop mode is 'Index but don't query' no need to regenerate test index. If your current stop mode is 'neither index nor query' regenerate text index.      

Thanks

Shruti

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