Search not returning results

[jack16]

We have two versions of an HTML5 help site--one current, one older. They reside on the same in-house help server, each in a different directory. A couple of weeks ago, we began to receive reports that search wasn't working in the current version. In most cases, when you type a term and press <Enter>, the search spins indefinitely, returning nothing. But if you type the same term in the older version, the search returns the appropriate results in a few seconds. The target and destination settings (not including the directories) in Flare are the same and have not been changed since we moved to the help server more than a year ago. Restarting IIS and rebooting the server had no effect. Any thoughts on what else we might try? As I said, the settings in Flare haven't been touched in more than a year. Thanks.

[ChoccieMuffin]

At first glance I'd suggest contacting Tech Support would be the quickest way to a solution, as they'll be able to quiz you about settings specific to your project. You might find that it's something really tiny and easy to fix (but a devil to find!) but they'll know what questions to ask so you can find out what's causing the problem. I look forward to hearing what you find.

[jack16]

Thank you for the suggestion. Our IT department has reset IIS, rebooted the help server and replaced the wildcard certificate, all to no effect. I submitted a bug and was asked to zip and upload the project to MadCap. We've done this in the past, and it's been hit-and-miss whether we hear back. I'll try to submit a case with Tech Support. I'm not sure, but I think our maintenance plan is the lower one (Bronze?). Thanks, again.

[jack16]

Solved. It was something I'd suspected but didn't know how to confirm. MadCap support graciously agreed to get on a call and poke around in the project a bit. We discovered the culprit was a script that'd been applied to the never-used Build Events tab on the target. A few weeks ago, a colleague downloaded 2020 Flare and discovered that publishing the project caused issues with our home page. I've stayed on 2019r2, since the home page issues don't occur when I publish. What I didn't realize early on was that, when my colleague published, the search worked; when I published, it didn't. MadCap had sent him the script to fix the home page issue, but it didn't work, and I was unaware the script had been applied to the Build Events tab. One night, I logged in to try the search again, and it worked, so I chalked it up to random shenanigans in the cybersphere. After logging off, though, I remembered the home page had been messed up so knew my colleague had been the last to publish. When I published in the morning to fix the home page, the search again didn't work. On the call with MadCap, I mentioned that my colleague and I were on different versions and wondered whether it might be related to the search issue. Eventually, she found the script, deleted it, and all's well.