Forum Discussion
SharePoint List Search Isn't Working
We have a SharePoint list with a few thousand items (<5k) and for some reason the search function can't find anything. We will type in the number on the same page we can see and then it won't ret...
Thanks Rachel!
Yes, it is searching within the list ("Search this list"). It used to work within a different tenant but we recently re-created the list in a new tenant and have lost the search functionality (everything returns "No items match your search"), which makes me feel like there is a setting incorrect.
There is one user, the creator of the list, whose search function appears to work - are there any user permissions settings that might be impacting this?
There is a setting in List Settings > Advanced to disallow items from the list to appear in search results, but it is a LIST setting, not a user setting. It can't hurt to check, but I doubt that's the issue.
Given that this is a migrated list, that brings in a whole host of other possible weird things. I don't know how it was migrated, so can't begin to make suggestions.
Honestly, if it were me, I would create a brand spanking new list in your current tenant. Export your old list to Excel and paste in 20 or so lines of data to the new list. See what happens. If it works, then I would probably quit monkeying around with the old migrated list and just paste in the remaining data. I only do about 100 lines at a time otherwise SP can time out and then you have to figure out what's missing or just delete and start over. Ick.
You can use the "Import from Excel" option, but you'll need to make sure to clean the Excel export of all references to the old list. I've found that when this option works, it's great. But it can be finicky and sometimes it's easier to just paste the rows.
Given that this is a migrated list, that brings in a whole host of other possible weird things. I don't know how it was migrated, so can't begin to make suggestions.
Honestly, if it were me, I would create a brand spanking new list in your current tenant. Export your old list to Excel and paste in 20 or so lines of data to the new list. See what happens. If it works, then I would probably quit monkeying around with the old migrated list and just paste in the remaining data. I only do about 100 lines at a time otherwise SP can time out and then you have to figure out what's missing or just delete and start over. Ick.
You can use the "Import from Excel" option, but you'll need to make sure to clean the Excel export of all references to the old list. I've found that when this option works, it's great. But it can be finicky and sometimes it's easier to just paste the rows.