Theme Search is broken

[stiofansisland]

Context: I initially found this bug when searching for my theme "School" ( ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/school/ )

Visiting this page via a link (or page refresh) ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/
Shows only 9 themes and no load more button and it does not show my theme.


However, if you visit another search page first such as ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/go/ and THEN search "school" from there, it brings you to the exact same URL but

1. The themes are different (my theme shows)
2. It shows 12 themes instead of the original 9
3. It shows the load more button.

However, if you refresh the page, it returns to the broken version of the search.

This is repeatable with other words such as "news".

Sometimes during my repeated searching it would work intermittently, which makes me think it could be related to a caching issue as well as something else.

All testing was done logged out.

[Otto42]

Theme search seems fine, and that theme is the first one that shows up.

[stiofansisland]

Yeah its tricky as sometimes it work, which make some think its some sort of caching issue...

Other keywords that seem to break ofter are
​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/news/
​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/directory/

You will know it's broken if there is no load more button.

Thanks for giving this some attention.

[stiofansisland]

School seems to be back to broken now too ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/

You can see the wrong results using the WP screenshot tool:
​ https://wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/?w=825&h=430

[stiofansisland]

School theme search from a direct link

[stiofansisland]

School theme search when done from another theme page (this is the correct results)

[stiofansisland]

news theme search from a direct link

[stiofansisland]

news theme search when done from another theme page (this is the correct results)

[stiofansisland]

directory theme search from a direct link

[stiofansisland]

directory theme search when done from another theme page (this is the correct results)

[stiofansisland]

For reference, "direct link" screenshot links:
​ https://wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/?w=825&h=430
​ https://wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/news/?w=825&h=430
​ https://wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/directory/?w=825&h=430

[paulkevan]

This isn't broken, but the expected results.

Sometimes when the Elasticsearch (which powers the theme directory search) doesn't return results (for a few reasons), it defaults to the WordPress standard search, which only takes into account the query sent, so results in what is seen when the school theme returns first.

[stiofansisland]

That page shows 9 resutls and no "Load more" button, so just 9 results which does not include the theme with the slug "school". So if you land on that search page there is NO WAY to find the theme with the slug "school", i'd call that very broken...

Here is a web archive link showing that it only shows 9 themes and no load more (so no way to find the theme with slug "school" as well as many many others).
​ https://web.archive.org/web/20230926133925/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/

As mentioned on slack, if enough people visit that page in a short period of time it then seems to work as expected, which makes me think its a caching issue, but I guess the first hurdle is trying to get some one to belive this is actually a bug :(

[stiofansisland]

Another way to replicate...

Go to any theme page eg: ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/go/
In the theme search box enter "school", this shows the correct results. Then simply hit "enter" and the page loads with the wrong results which are limited to 9 themes with no load more button anymore.

[stiofansisland]

The second most popular theme on wp.org can't be found with the search term "hello"
​ https://web.archive.org/web/20230927110945/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/hello/

[dufresnesteven]

Thanks for the ticket @stiofansisland.

I see that searching for uppercase "School" and lowercase "school" returns different results and that is unexpected. 👍

[stiofansisland]

Replying to dufresnesteven :

Thanks for the ticket @stiofansisland.

I see that searching for uppercase "School" and lowercase "school" returns different results and that is unexpected. 👍

I think that is just a byproduct of repeating your search, I don't see a difference with the bug with case.

[dufresnesteven]

Replying to stiofansisland :

Replying to dufresnesteven :

Thanks for the ticket @stiofansisland.

I see that searching for uppercase "School" and lowercase "school" returns different results and that is unexpected. 👍

I think that is just a byproduct of repeating your search, I don't see a difference with the bug with case.

Incorrect, regardless of the number of page reloads, the result sets always differ:

• ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/School/ shows 12+ results
• ​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/ show 9 results

[dufresnesteven]

"Hello" and "hello" also return different result sets:

​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/Hello/
​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/hello/

[stiofansisland]

@dufresnesteven this is just another symptom of the bug, if too many people start loading that page it then WORKS (as mentioned previously).

NOW it seems to work for those specific words because we are all checking it, but in a few hours, it will be broken again.

Check the screenshot of the lowercase school, I bet its different than what you currently are seeing ​ https://wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https://wordpress.org/themes/search/school/?w=825&h=430

"directory" is still currently broken

​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/Directory/
​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/directory/

[stiofansisland]

Just to be clear, this seems to have nothing to do with cAsE, though it can show different results, its just showing the issue and not the actual issue.

This has been broken for a long time, this ticket alone is 8+ months old and it was broken a long time before that. I have made a short video showing how the pages show different content for the SAME search terms ​ https://youtu.be/VlrFZfDKRWY

I still can't believe it, but at this point, I'm still trying to get someone to actually confirm this is a bug, and it's broken!

[dufresnesteven]

Thanks for the effort @stiofansisland.

We're currently updating the front-end to be block-based which will help us identify what's truly going on here.

There is some relevant conversations happening in this ticket you should check out:
​ https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-theme-directory/issues/69

The theme itself is not ready for official QA, but you can preview the updates using this URL:
​ https://wordpress.org/themes/search/news/?new -theme=1

It does appears like some of the issues in your recording are already resolved.

[stiofansisland]

@dufresnesteven awesome! Thanks for pointing this out, and indeed it does look fixed in the new block based layout! I'll follow the github issue.