SXA scope not working with one specific field in PAAS

Question

I have a SXA search scope which is working, but as soon as I try to extend it with our "Company" field, it fails to find any results. Company is a multilist field.

Our steps:

1. Create a search scope as: template:{237FD461-A7F6-4080-AFAB-57227F87782E};...;+location:{FF3E546F-C781-4B47-84D7-23CE125CF473} This works fine and is giving us the correct query and results.
2. We have to add an extra part to the query, for our company field. I added "Company|....". This does not seem to work.
3. I have tried to use the exact index field instead of the field name: template:{237FD461-A7F6-4080-AFAB-57227F87782E};...;+location:{FF3E546F-C781-4B47-84D7-23CE125CF473};+custom:company_sm|01f831ffc56e4cf5ba719a1e77406ec9 Still no luck.

When I try with a another multilist field on those templates, it does work. When I checked my logs for the queries Sitecore is doing I saw something strange..

The query performed was: &search=(language_1:(en) AND (template_1:(237fd461a7f64080afab57227f87782e) OR template_1:(9d791aff92314b41b482f46737a59e0c) OR template_1:(bcbc94ab9b6a40079370b5052c44b20b)) AND company_s:(01f831ffc56e4cf5ba719a1e77406ec9))&$filter=(latestversion_1 and (path_1/any(t:t eq 'ff3e546fc7814b4784d723ce125cf473')) and searchable and (path_1/any(t:t eq 'ff3e546fc7814b4784d723ce125cf473')))&queryType=full&$skip=0&$top=12&$orderby=title&$count=true

Note that Sitecore is using company_s instead of company_sm - where for a multilist field the _sm should be used.

Why is this and how can I get Sitecore to use the exact field?

Answer 1

It turns out we had another template in the same instance that also had a field called "Company", but in this case it was a droplist (and not a multilist). This caused our issues.

In the case were I tried using the Sitecore field in the query, this might make sense.. Sitecore has no clue which index field to take.

In the case were I used the actual index field however, I did expect Sitecore to leave that field alone and use it, but apparently they don't (with Azure Search). After talking to Support, this is registed as a bug in 9.0.2 (ref 301873).

I fixed it by removing (or renaming) one of the Company fields to make sure there was no "duplicate" in the index. One this was done, I had to rebuild all the affected indexes (note that in Azure you can easily remove the indexes first to make sure they really start from scratch).

Lesson learned: never have multiple fields from a different type with the same name in the same instance...