Search not returning results

Hello Bahalzamon,
I've been experiencing the same issue, in fact it's the reason I ran into your post. I am a Sharepoint administrator, I have access to the entire site of my company including hubsites, yet, SP Search does not yield particular documents in particular libraries--even if I created these documents and even if I can access the document library. I can navigate to their location and access these documents without problem.

It is my impression that Microsoft has been changing permission policies over the past couple of months, because for obscure reasons, parts of the Sharepoint site demanded me to grant permission. As a site manager, this was no problem, but the reason why I needed to regrant permission to myself is not clear to me.

I have experimented with a number of search variables, in order to find the source of this problem.

First, I found that the issue depends on the document that I am looking for: some will show up in search, others won't.

I also found that ownership is not a decisive factor: documents I created are not visible in Search results, whilst documents I didn't create will show up.

I also tested for the environment of my searches. I work on a Macbook pro, accessing Sharepoint via my browser and I can access Sharepoint via Microsoft Remote Desktop in my company's working environment. I wanted to make sure there were no limitations imposed by the Microsoft license manager, but this didn't make a difference either.

Then I tested for browsers and found that, ironically, Microsoft Edge (on Mac OSX) has temporary glitches in search results. Opening a new window and performing a new search will sometimes help reanimate SP Search, but I am not assuming this is (y)our problem, since this workaround, well..., works.

Finally, inspired by some posts on Reddit, I tested for users with different permission levels. I asked a company manager if she did see all search results for documents in that particular library, and she did. She has edit permissions throughout all hubsites, subsites and document libraries. I also noticed that I, as Sharepoint manager, was not included in the document library permissions, so I added myself to have full access to this particular library. I will have to keep you in suspense about the outcome, because permission changes on Sharepoint may take a while to take effect.

Moreover, documents that would show up in my search results, were located in libraries I did have full control access to. So I am moderately optimistic about the outcome.

I am less optimistic about the consequences on site-wide level, because if this is the cause of the issue, it means that I will have to regrant myself access permission to all site locations that are now shielded from search results. Some locations have permissions that are not inherited from parents, so I will have to check all of those locations individually.