Filter Web Part Displaying Token Value instead of Name or Value data

[roblantern]

Hello,

I am using the Filters web part for several refiners and they are all working except for one - Year. Year is a choice field with values for twenty years (2016 to 2036). The filter dropdown is not displaying the year value and instead is displaying the token value (I confirmed this using browser Dev Tools). This may be a bug where the choice values being text that are numbers is causing a problem with the web part code. The filters do filter correctly when selected, but I have attached a screenshot of the incorrect display. Anyone have any ideas on what may be wrong?

[LBrowne1]

On SharePoint Online running version 4.23.3.0 I'm seeing this issue as well with a column which only has numbers and symbols:

And the filter shows:

If I select one of the options then the symbol changes:

[kasperbolarsen]

Can you share which Managed property you are using in the Refiner and which crawled property it is mapped to?

[roblantern]

For me, it is a single choice field, I am using RefinableString101 and I have it mapped to OWS_Q_CHCS_LTNGTMYEAR. This configuration is working fine in the verticals section of the site search config.

[LBrowne1]

It is a multiple choice column in a list so the crawled property is OWS_AgeRange and it is mapped to RefinableString02. The other multiple choice columns work fine, and I did try changing the RefinableString to 05 but that had the same issue

[kasperbolarsen]

Multiselect choice fields has always been a pain, both in out of the box Search and in PnP Modern search. The reason is that a choice field with the options A. B and C, can contain one of many combinations, like AB, AC, BA etc. The problem is that AB and BA are two combinations that are not related at all from a logical point of view.
I guess that you saw both the AB and BA combinations in the Refiner in previous versions?

I haven't tested it as I always avoid multiselect choice fields, for the above reasons.

I'll take a look at it, probably early next week

[LBrowne1]

I've never tried on previous versions I'm afraid. Thank you for taking a look!

[dontthroworanges]

@kasperbolarsen, this seems to be affecting Managed Metadata fields as well. All the screenshots below are MM fields mapped to RefinableString managed properties. Interestingly some are showing the token value as previously reported and some seem to be truncating the values. I was previously on 4.20.x and didn't see the issue there.

[kasperbolarsen]

I tracked this down and fixed it.

Root cause:

• The Filters web part was too permissive when trying to decode encoded refinement labels.
• For some refiners, especially numeric-only values like years, the label resolver could treat the wrong string as the display label and end up showing token-derived or corrupted values instead of the readable value.
• For CHCM / multi-choice mapped crawled properties, SharePoint was also returning the raw ;#-serialized label format, which we were not normalizing before display.

What changed:

• tightened the encoded-token decoding so we only decode explicit encoded payloads
• prevented non-printable / corrupted label values from being treated as valid display names
• normalized CHCM-style refinement labels so values like 2019;#2023;# display as 2019, 2023

Validation:

• verified locally on the repro page from this discussion
• RefinableString172 now shows readable year values like 2022, 2028, etc.
• RefinableString174 no longer shows token values; it now shows normalized multi-choice combinations

One important note:

• For the CHCM-mapped property, SharePoint still refines on the stored multi-choice combinations, so combinations like 2021, 2028, 2030 are expected for that property shape. That part is a SharePoint/refiner-data characteristic, not the token-display bug.

The fix is in PR #4886.

[roblantern]

Thanks @kasperbolarsen ! Do you know what version that fix will be in?

[kasperbolarsen]

It is the developer branch, so you can build it yourself. Otherwise it will be in vNext