Why Does an SOSL Query Failing with ‘s’ at the End?

Question

When executing an SOSL query in the Developer Console, a simple search like:

FIND {searchterm} IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Product2(Id)

returns results as expected. However, modifying the query to include an additional ‘s’ at the end:

FIND {searchterm s} IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Product2(Id)

causes the query to take longer and return 0 results, even though both “searchterm” and “s” appeared in the results of the first query. Interestingly, this issue does not occur with other single characters, such as ‘d’. This behavior suggests that Salesforce may be handling the query differently when an extra ‘s’ is appended.

A colleague suggested that Salesforce might be internally converting {searchterm s} into {searchterm%20s}, which could be affecting how the query is processed. Further testing revealed more inconsistencies. Using or in the query returned a large number of results, while and returned none. Reversing the word order, such as {s searchterm}, produced different outcomes.

Surprisingly, the same query works correctly in sandbox environments, where the Salesforce version is Winter ’25 Patch 12, whereas the production org is on Winter ’25 Patch 11.12. This strongly suggests that Salesforce has already addressed the issue in the latest patch, meaning an upgrade to Patch 12 in production may resolve the problem.

Answer

How Salesforce Tokenizes Search Terms

According to Salesforce documentation, the search engine splits record information into separate tokens using spaces and punctuation. In most cases, these tokens are treated as if there is an implicit AND operator between them. This means that for a record to be matched, both “searchterm” and “s” must exist as complete tokens within the record. However, there are exceptions, such as in Articles, Documents, and Solutions, where the OR operator is used instead.

Since “s” is a very short token, it may not be indexed or recognized as a valid searchable term in all cases. The underlying search engine may also interpret {searchterm s} differently from {s searchterm}, leading to unexpected results.

Possible Solutions and Workarounds

1. Use Quotation Marks to Prevent Tokenization

By wrapping the search terms in double quotes, you can prevent Salesforce from treating them as separate tokens:

FIND {"searchterm s"} IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Product2(Id)

This forces Salesforce to treat “searchterm s” as a single unit rather than separate words.

2. Explicitly Use the OR Operator

If you want to retrieve records that contain either “searchterm” or “s”, you can explicitly specify OR in the query:

FIND {searchterm OR s} IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Product2(Id)

This prevents Salesforce from requiring both terms to be present in the same record.

3. Use Wildcards to Expand the Search

To avoid issues where “s” might not be indexed properly, you can use wildcards (*) to match partial words:

FIND {searchterm* s*} IN ALL FIELDS RETURNING Product2(Id)

This allows Salesforce to return records where the words start with “searchterm” or “s” but may have additional characters after them.

4. Upgrade the Production Org to Winter ’25 Patch 12

Since the issue does not occur in sandboxes running Winter ’25 Patch 12, it is likely that Salesforce has already fixed the bug. Upgrading your production org to the latest patch should resolve the issue without needing workarounds.

This behavior appears to be caused by how Salesforce tokenizes search terms and how the search engine handles short words like “s”. The issue is not present in newer Salesforce patches, so upgrading your production org is the best long-term solution. In the meantime, using quotes, wildcards, or the OR operator can help ensure your SOSL queries return the expected results.

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