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Most errors that you encounter when using Algolia for Magento are data or indexing related. This page addresses the most common issues.

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Empty search results

When Algolia for Magento is installed, it automatically fetches the Magento product data, transforms it to a JSON structure and pushes this data to Algolia. If any problems are encountered, please make sure that:

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Outdated search results

With automatic indexing turned on, the indexing happens asynchronously. It may take some time for your data to be updated.
It’s possible for the indexing queue to crash under certain circumstances. Below is a list of the most common problems you can encounter.

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Network error

Network errors are typically resolved automatically thanks to the queueing process. If the network error persists over multiple queue runs, there may be a problem with the underlying infrastructure of the Magento app. When in doubt: if the problem lies with the Algolia infrastructure, check the status page for any issues.

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Memory error

Magento has known memory leaks that can lead to problems as memory usage increases. These issues become more pronounced with larger records. For this reason, Algolia has a maximum record size of 10 KB to 100 KB, based on your plan (10 KB maximum for the Build plan). Records that exceed this limit result in a “Record is too big” error.

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Record size

If the total size of the index exceeds this limit, you should turn on automatic indexing through the queue. The cron job running the indexing breaks up large indices into chunks within the size limit. When indexing without the cron job, or with the EMPTY_QUEUE=1 argument in the job, the index size isn’t checked.

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Failed reindexing jobs

To see if any of the created jobs have failed, check the algoliasearch_queue table. If a job fails, it needs to be restarted. This will continue the indexing job from where it stopped, so it won’t run it in its entirety again. If the queue is enabled, the restart will happen automatically. The indexing job can be restarted manually by pressing the restart link. This can be found by clicking the index on the Magento Dashboard.

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Incomplete search results

In case some products are missing from the search, note that the Algolia extension doesn’t index products for which one of the following statements is true:
  • The product is deleted
  • The product is turned off
  • The product is out of stock and the web shop hides products that are out of stock
  • The product isn’t visible in the search and in the web shop
Only when none of the preceding statements are true will Algolia index the product, and will it show up in the search results.

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Price index dependencies

Even if the product meets all of the criteria for visibility, products still might not sync with Algolia if the core Magento “Product Price” index isn’t up to date. To ensure that the price index is up to date, it can be run before executing the Algolia index with this Magento CLI command: 
bin/magento indexer:reindex catalog_product_price
When all indexers are set to run on schedule as recommended, Algolia monitors changes to products using Materialized Views. With the indexing queue enabled, the affected products may be processed asynchronously later, at which point the price indexer may become out of date. Magento price index invalid
Sometimes records may be missing in the price index even if the index appears to be valid.
If products aren’t found in the price index, Algolia treats them as “removed” and issues a deleteObject request in the corresponding Algolia index. This means certain products may “disappear” from the website. To determine if this is happening, carefully review the logs. If you’ve verified that this is happening, and running the catalog_product_price before the Algolia indexer isn’t practical, enable automatic price indexing from the extension’s advanced configuration: Stores > Configuration > Algolia Search > Advanced > Advanced > Enable automatic price indexing Configure automatic price indexing in Magento admin To minimize the marginal impact on processing time when this feature is enabled, ensure the indexing queue is optimized.

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Parsing errors

This error can occur during indexing when the indexed data fails to encode to JSON. 
JSON parsing error: syntax error
This could be due to incorrect syntax like un-escaped values in your attributes.

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Errors from suggestions index

The suggestions index often triggers this error. In the extension, the suggestions index pulls data from Magento’s Search Terms collection. Search Terms is a collection of all submitted queries made by the search form. The extension indexes the query_text value as is, which can sometimes throw errors if Search Terms contain malignant queries generated by bad actors like robots. Lax conditions allow indexing of irrelevant queries. You can enforce higher conditions to reduce the less relevant Search Terms by increasing the numeric values in Stores > Algolia Search > Autocomplete Menu. Suggestions configuration The extension indexes search terms based on these configurations:
PHP
/* @see \Algolia\AlgoliaSearch\Helper\Entity\SuggestionHelper::getSuggestionCollectionQuery() */

$collection->getSelect()->where(
    'num_results >= ' . $this->configHelper->getMinNumberOfResults($storeId) . '
    AND popularity >= ' . $this->configHelper->getMinPopularity($storeId) . '
    AND query_text != "__empty__"'
);
To return more relevant results, increase these configuration values or clean up your search terms by manually deleting problematic query_texts values from the collection.

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Record too big errors

Algolia limits individual record size for performance reasons. The limits depend on your plan. If a record is larger than the threshold, Algolia returns the error message Record is too big. To reduce the amount of errors thrown, the extension truncates or skips attributes with values that are larger than a certain size: Record too big error The function below throws the warning error: \Algolia\AlgoliaSearch\Helper\AlgoliaHelper::prepareRecords() The private method handleTooBigRecord evaluates attributes and flags large ones. This preventive strategy isn’t always perfect as some attributes are important for search.

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How to resolve

Resolve this error by upgrading your plan or reducing attribute size.

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Upgrade your plan

By default, the Algolia extension has a record size limit. If your Algolia plan allows a higher record size limit, you can customize the record size limit.

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Reduce attribute size

Attributes like description, have a lot of content or hidden script tags that aren’t necessary for search. To reduce the size of this attribute, strip the HTML tags before indexing. To change attributes before indexing, create an observer on the dispatched event for the entity you need. For products, this event is: algolia_after_create_product_object
PHP
<?php

namespace Your\CustomModule\Observer;

use Magento\Framework\Event\Observer;
use Magento\Framework\Event\ObserverInterface;

class AlgoliaAfterCreateProductObject implements ObserverInterface
{
    public function execute(Observer $observer)
    {
        $data = $observer->getData('custom_data');
        $product = $observer->getData('productObject');

        // modify description to strip tags
        $description = $data->getData('description');
        $data->setData('description', strip_tags($description));
    }
}

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404 not found error in Magento configuration

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