Managed Metadata fields not appearing as Crawled Properties. Is this a wider SharePoint search issue?

[jamesdellowwv]

We are seeing Microsoft Search issues across multiple tenants where Managed Metadata fields are failing to appear as crawled properties, making them impossible to map to managed properties.

We've reproduced the issue across multiple sites and tenants, reindexed libraries and sites, created new content, recreated taxonomy columns, verified term sets are published, and confirmed the fields contain populated values. Despite this, the expected crawled properties never appear in the search schema.

What's particularly confusing is that the behaviour is inconsistent. In some tenants only certain Managed Metadata fields are affected while others continue to work normally. In other tenants we cannot reproduce the issue at all and search behaves as expected.

Has anyone else encountered this recently, or received any guidance from Microsoft?

[spg-iwilson]

Yes, we are seeing the same across tenants. But not just limited to managed metadata fields. No custom properties are being picked up as crawled properties.

We found SP1393483 that describes the same issue, but this is marked as resolved on Jul 30 2026.

[kasperbolarsen]

Yes, it seems to be a general problem, two of my tenants have that issue now.
As far as I can tell the crawled properties are created but the UX doesn't show them.
Once I have had the opportunity to test if Mikael Svensons crawled property to RefinableString script works for those managed metadata crawled properties, I will add a post to the PnP Modern Search page on LinkedIn about it.
In the meantime please share any MS support ticket numbers here as it seems Microsoft Support can't find similar cases without an ID

[AndrewJolly]

@kasperbolarsen how'd you get on with testing Mikael Svensons crawled property to RefinableString script
https://github.com/wobba/SearchConfiguration/blob/master/MapCrawledPropertyToManagedProperty.ps1

[kasperbolarsen]

I haven't tested that as the PnP PowerShell approach worked just fine

[AnouckF]

I have the same issue with one tenant to reproduce the issue. I have a support case open with Microsoft TrackingID#2608261420000493

[Justin-Nash]

We have 3 support tickets open across 3 different tenants in relation to this issue their Case Numbers are:

• 2608240030004892
• 2608240030004916
• 2609010030000397

[kasperbolarsen]

I have added one based on my dev tenant : TrackingID#2609011410001819

[jamesdellowwv]

I'm getting some more IDs, but here is one to start with: TrackingID#2512020030000080

[IdsVibe]

This might be related:

For the past year we've been experiencing an issue where new SharePoint fields are no longer generating crawled properties. This is not limited to managed metadata fields. Microsoft is aware of the issue and is working on a fix. As a temporary workaround, Microsoft has manually created crawled properties for us and has provided the Add-PnPTenantSearchCrawledProperty cmdlet for scenarios where crawled properties are not automatically generated so we don't have to ask Microsoft to create them.

https://pnp.github.io/powershell/cmdlets/Add-PnPTenantSearchCrawledProperty.html Please be careful with this.

TrackingID#2512311420000511

[IdsVibe]

I received a message yesterday that the product group is working on a code fix for our issue and that the ETA 15th of september is.

[mkuesel]

My workaround was the following.
I have a custom site column with internal name "oneWorldDepartment".
Normally when mapping managed properties to crawled properties i was able to search for "oneWorld" and it would find and display "ows_oneWorldDepartment". But that didn't work anymore. I tried around and noticed when I search for "ows_one" it finds the crawled properties and i could select them.

Funny note: searching for "ows_oneWorld" or "ows_oneWorldDepartment" did not find any results.

[kasperbolarsen]

Fellow MVP Edine Olijve pointed me to the new PnP PowerShell cmd Add-PnPTenantSearchCrawledProperty and it works as a fine workaround, see script at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7501012861113106432/

[Gr3en]

We are seeing this issue as well, we don't have managed metadata, but regular columns are not showing up as crawled properties.
Made a support case with Microsoft mentioning the related case numbers. Our case number is: ‎2609031410000853‎

[jamesdellowwv]

Another case number to share: #2609100040007752

[sympmarc]

I'm seeing this in one tenant as well. I don't have a support ticket to share but wanted to add my woes. My ISSUES are with both Managed Metadata and Date and Time columns.

I'll be trying the PnP.PowerShell cmdlet as a workaround. Add-PnPTenantSearchCrawledProperty

@IdsVibe said there was supposed to be a fix rolled out on Sept 15. Anyone seen a positive results yet?

[sympmarc]

Excellent news, @IdsVibe. Did it just resolve for you on its own?

[IdsVibe]

Yes, but we received an ETA for a code fix by 15th of september, and on the 15th, support contacted me to verify and confirm whether the issue had been resolved. Something must have changed, but unfortunately I don't have any more details.

[IdsVibe]

I have some additional details: the issue was caused by a timeout, and the product group resolved it through a code fix.

[sympmarc]

Let's hope it's fixed for real - and that it doesn't occur again. Some of these incredibly powerful capabilities seem to be eroding as they work on all the AI stuff.

[lucaremdev]

This workaround using Add-PnPTenantSearchCrawledProperty just worked for me! Great! I was stuck on this since a month! Alleluia!

[ddfox]

Hi,

Wondered how everyone's experiences with the fixes are going?

This week, I have been able to find my managed metadata columns as crawled properties, but they're appearing greyed out. I was able to enter the properties menu for one of my greyed out fields from the Crawled Properties and add attach a mapping to a RefinableString but got the error message SettingDoesNotExist error (see pic).

When I attempt to go from the Managed properties menu and map via the RefinableString to a crawled property instead, the crawled property doesn't show up in the list of available properties.

I guess my question is, is this case suitable for use of the Add-CrawledProperty cmdlet?

Many thanks for any advice.

[spg-iwilson]

I'm still unable to find crawled properties. I've tested with a single line of text column. I've verified that content in the column has been indexed. Waiting for the MSP to get a response from Microsoft.

[julianulrichioz]

hi @ALL.
has anyone a working tenant after the fix (without manually creating some properties via script) after the fix from MS?
i have also around 10 tenants (on 4 of them we created tickets pretty early about 3 weeks ago) but except the please test after 15th no much further info’s other than it takes 7 days to deploy the fix.
just wondering cause my colleagues and I don’t see any fix in the problem behavior

[AndrewJolly]

I'm still waiting for the fix to (I assume) propagate through the different regions if that's whats happening.
Given the fact that a fix is due, i'm reluctant to powershell in crawled properties to avoid opening other cans of worms.

[julianulrichioz]

good plan. i have the same problem. but i am getting impatient and tried the PS but it failed with error "could not resolve the tenant search schema ID from the exported search configuration"
so i am waiting in the fix as well....

[AndrewJolly]

I had an update from them and they said that they couldn't give me accurate predictions on timeline for propagation of the fix And that the recommendation is the Powershell command approach I'm going to give it a couple more days but it could be I'll resort to partial fix others have said that it works fine I've just always been reluctant to mess with search without good reason.

[spg-iwilson]

Here is a consolidated list of the 10 Microsoft tracking IDs so far in this thread in case you want to provide them to Microsoft, including a new one from our client.

2609100040007752
2609100030000932
2609031410000853‎
2609010030000397
2609011410001819
2608261420000493
2608240030004916
2608240030004892
2512311420000511
2512020030000080

[AndrewJolly]

you can add this one to the list:
2609110030000610

[LineTarber]

You can also add this to the list:
2609231420000860

[jamesdellowwv]

None of my team have reported any improvements for the customers affected by this issue. Is there anything official communicated by Microsoft about the fix rollout?

[Mindcubeus]

On some tenants, https://pnp.github.io/powershell/cmdlets/Add-PnPTenantSearchCrawledProperty.html failed with the error:

Could not resolve the tenant search schema ID from the exported search configuration.

In our case, this occurred because no custom mappings were present in the search schema. We were able to resolve the issue by adding an existing crawled property to an unused RefinableString managed property.

It took us a while to figure this out, so hopefully this saves someone else some time.