TransientError: Temporary search service error - Python Google App Engine Search

Question

I'm trying to run a query and sorting by 'updated_at' field using a large number_found_accuracy:

order_options = search.SortOptions(
    expressions=[search.SortExpression(expression='updated_at',
                                   direction=search.SortExpression.DESCENDING)])

query_options = search.QueryOptions(
    limit=50,
    cursor=search.Cursor(),
    sort_options=order_options,
    number_found_accuracy=25000)

index = search.Index('contacts', namespace='default')
query_future = index.search_async(search.Query("", options=query_options))
contacts = query_future.get_result()

When get_result() is called i get the error bellow:

File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/third_party/webapp2-2.5.2/webapp2.py", line 1535, in call rv = self.handle_exception(request, response, e) File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/third_party/webapp2-2.5.2/webapp2.py", line 1529, in call rv = self.router.dispatch(request, response) File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/third_party/webapp2-2.5.2/webapp2.py", line 1278, in default_dispatcher return route.handler_adapter(request, response) File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/third_party/webapp2-2.5.2/webapp2.py", line 1102, in call return handler.dispatch() File "/base/data/home/apps/p~imobzi-app/20181127t101400.414282042583891084/modules/base_handler.py", line 72, in dispatch super(BaseHandler, self).dispatch() File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/third_party/webapp2-2.5.2/webapp2.py", line 572, in dispatch return self.handle_exception(e, self.app.debug) File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/third_party/webapp2-2.5.2/webapp2.py", line 570, in dispatch return method(*args, **kwargs) File "/base/data/home/apps/p~imobzi-app/20181127t101400.414282042583891084/main.py", line 132, in get contacts = query_future.get_result() File "/base/alloc/tmpfs/dynamic_runtimes/python27g/3b44e98ed7fbb86b/python27/python27_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/api/search/search.py", line 281, in get_result raise _ToSearchError(e) TransientError: Temporary search service error

The error occurs when i use "number_found_accuracy" and "sort_options" in same query when query result is large (this query return more than 50,000 results).

If "number_found_accuracy" or "sort_options" is removed from query_options i get the result normally, but if both is in query_options, the error occurs.

In a normal case i'd remove "number_found_accuracy" from query, but i need to show the result count for the user and sort it by updated_at field. Does anyone know a way to solve this? This occurs only when a deploy project to server, in a local/development environment, everything works as expected.

Omair Omair · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-27T18:13:07

One reason for this error can be that the length of the query exceeds the limit of 2000 characters as specified in the documentation.

There is also a limitation on sorting that can be worked around by presorting your documents in the index using Document rank as explained in this StackOverflow answer.

Also note that as per the documentation

number_found:
Returns an approximate number of documents matching the query. QueryOptions defining post-processing of the search results. If the QueryOptions.number_found_accuracy parameter were set to 100, then number_found <= 100 is accurate.

Since you have set number_found_accuracy=25000, any search result with a size greater than 25000 will be an approximate.

TransientError: Temporary search service error - Python Google App Engine Search

1 Answers