WooCommerce Product Search NOT working on backend

Hi @palkat,

Thank you for reaching out. I understand how confusing and frustrating this kind of issue can be, especially since the search is working and displaying the product, which confirms that the product exists.

I tried replicating the issue on my staging site but couldn’t. To better understand what’s happening on your end, could you please share a screen recording using Loom? Also, include the name of the product you’re searching for so we can cross-check it on the main site.

Hi @palkat,

Thank you for getting back to us and for sharing the video. This issue appears to be related to a database index corruption or a conflict that’s preventing requests from being processed correctly in the database.

To begin troubleshooting, please go to WooCommerce → Status → Tools and perform the following:

• Clear both transients
• Clear the template cache
• Regenerate the product lookup tables

After completing these steps, test the process again. If the issue persists, please share your System Status Report by navigating to WooCommerce → Status → Get system report → Copy for support, then paste the report into Pastebin and share the link here.

Hi @palkat,

Thanks so much for following the earlier steps and for sharing your System Status Report, that’s really helpful for digging deeper into this.

Looking through your SSR, I noticed everything seems generally healthy, but there may still be a conflict or indexing issue at play—especially considering this only affects the backend product search when creating orders.

Here are a few additional steps to try next:

1. Enable Debug Logging: Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Inventory and turn on “Enable stock management,” then under WooCommerce → Status → Logs, select the most recent fatal-errors log (if any) and check if there’s anything unusual during your backend search attempts.
2. Check for Plugin Conflicts: Temporarily switch to the Storefront theme and disable all plugins except WooCommerce. Then try the product search again when creating an order. If it works, re-enable your plugins one by one to find the conflicting one. Learn more here: https://woocommerce.com/document/how-to-test-for-conflicts/
3. Confirm Object Cache: Since the front end works fine, it’s possible an object caching layer (like Redis or persistent object cache) is interfering. You may want to temporarily disable that if it’s enabled and retest.

If you’re using any custom code or extensions to modify the admin experience, those could also interfere. Let me know if that’s the case.

Hi @palkat,

Thank you for getting back and providing the clarification. The recent error you shared indicates that your memory limit is 256MB, and a plugin is hitting this limit, causing a crash, which could contribute to the issue you’re experiencing.

However, I noticed something unusual: your system status report shows a memory limit of 512MB. Could you check with your host to confirm the actual memory limit? If the error shows 256MB but your report shows 512MB, this suggests there may be a server-related issue.

If you are on a shared hosting plan with multiple sites using the same cPanel or addon domains, this can also cause memory spikes like the one you’re seeing. To further troubleshoot, you could create a new installation in a subdomain or separate directory, add WooCommerce, add a product, and try creating a manual order to see if searching works on this new installation on the same server.