Confluence shows different results to two users with same permissions

[Roberto Osegueda]

We have an issue in our company where Confluence is showing different results for two users with the same set of permissions. It seems to be completely ignoring some pages with no restriction at all for one user and, at the same time, is ranking the results differently. 

We can see this by doing explain.action like so:

https://ourserver.com/explain.action?queryString=Test+query

Even while ignoring some pages, the results are way different from one user to another. Why would it be so different if they have the same rights on the same spaces and the ignored page (or it's parents) doesn't have any restriction ?

Is there a user-specific setting in Confluence that could be affecting the results? We haven't tried re-indexing but it would same strange that the results would be different for two people, if the index is the same.

Thanks.

[Steven Ashley · Accepted solution]

-- comment not posted by me --

[Roberto Osegueda]

-- Comment removed --

[Roberto Osegueda · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the reply.

After some testing, we found out you can force Confluence to add those missing pages to the Index by simply editing the page and saving it, even if no content was added to the page.

This showed us that it was not a permissions issue.

This also makes me think Confluence has more than one Index and forces users to search on one index and one index only. Which is probably why one user could see the page in the results correctly and it was hidden for another user.

Rebuilding the Index fixed the problem.

Thanks.

[Tobias Anstett _K15t_]

Hi @Roberto Osegueda,

In a vanilla Confluence two users with exactly the same permissions should have the same visibility of search results and order.

It looks like explain.action (was not aware of this action at all) uses either v2 or v3 search depending on some dark features. Nevertheless it is consistent for all users.

I would try to create a new space with those two users and and a chunk of pages and try a search limited to this space to see if you can reproduce the issue there as well. E.g

http://localhost:8090/dosearchsite.action?cql=siteSearch+~+%22Test+query%22+and+space+%3D+%22SPACEKEYHERE%22&queryString=Test

Usually issues like this are caused by inherited page restrictions - but you already checked this.

Best, Tobias