The Curious Case of Missing Products & How Our Magento Solution Architects Played James Bond

The Curious Case of Missing Products & How Our Magento Solution Architects Played James Bond

The Curious Case of Missing Products

• Built on Adobe Commerce (Magento Enterprise), our client’s website was running smoothly and performing excellently with all features and functionality intact.
• The smooth ride had to take a break all of a sudden, and the website’s ‘product categories’ pages started behaving mysteriously.
• All the products listed on the pages went missing abruptly and showed up again after manual reindexing for a short period before going missing again.
• This peek-a-boo game kept going round and round, leaving the site owners puzzled.

Our expert team of Magento solution architects stepped into the crime(!) scene to decode this mystery. Our team left no stone unturned to restore the missing products.

Here’s how our investigation process started off:

Step 1: Audit the Magento log files for evidence

In most cases, there could be some errors with the log files, resolving which could easily restore the broken functionality. To everyone’s surprise, in this case, there weren’t any errors, new additions, or irregularities reported in the Magento log files. Ruling out this possibility, our Magento detective squad moved on to the next step.

Step 2: Review the smooth running of Cronjobs

Cronjobs are often overlooked, and when they aren’t running as per the schedule, it could impact the frontend experience. When our team conducted an audit, we found that all Cronjobs were running seamlessly at their scheduled times. So Cronjobs couldn’t be the reason for the ‘products missing’ issue. This one got ruled out, too.

Step 3: Conduct a complete review of Elasticsearch

The client was using Elasticsearch as their search engine. At times, discrepancies associated with such third-party applications could be secretly causing all the harm. Our team took this cue seriously and carried out an in-depth assessment of Elasticsearch.

• Clear all old data associated with Elasticsearch: The uncleared data associated with add-ons and plugins could possibly be a reason. Our team cleared the Elasticsearch’s old data to check if that could fix the issue. Bummer! That didn’t help.
• Review compatibility: If you are using an outdated or obsolete version of Elasticsearch, that could possibly hinder your site’s performance and functionality. Our team reviewed Elasticsearch’s version and ensured that it meets the platform requirements as mentioned in the Magento technology stack documentation. The issue wasn’t still getting fixed.
• Restrict access to the Elasticsearch port: The Elasticsearch port should be secured by all possible means, and its access needs to be limited and restricted so that no one outside the secured environment can intrude and delete the assets. We reset the Elasticsearch port and tightened its security touchpoints. Even after this step, the ‘disappearing products’ issue didn’t get resolved.
• Check whether the index prefix used by Elasticsearch is unique: If your production server mirrors the staging (test) environment, you must use a unique index prefix specifically for the production environment. This step didn’t help restore the disappearing products.

Last resort: Check the reindexing process thoroughly

When our team examined the indexing and reindexing processes, they discovered that the pricing index took a very long time to complete Cronjobs in the scheduled window, resulting in the anomalous disappearance of several products from the categories pages. Furthermore, the EAV index and several other indexing modules were also getting blocked due to this discrepancy.

Eureka! We found it. Here ends our investigation. All blame goes to the delayed reindexing of the pricing modules that terribly held back other reindexing processes, too. As a result, several to almost all products went missing on the category pages and wrong prices were displayed across the available products.

Root Cause Identification

In this case, the root cause of the ‘products missing’ issue was the significant time taken by price reindexing and its subsequent hindrance to other reindexing processes.

How did we fix the issue and restore the products?

Adobe Commerce has a quality patch designed exclusively for addressing performance issues related to price indexing. The quality patch ACSD-53347 is dedicated to resolving this price indexing issue. After applying this quality patch, the website was restored to its fighting fit condition.

Just in case you need help learning how to apply the patch, here is the step-wise restoration process implemented by our Magento solution architects:

• Step 1: Go to this link: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/tools/commerce-quality-patches/index.html

• Step 2: Type the quality patch number (ACSD-53347) in the search box. Refer to the adjoining screenshot.

• Step 3: As it displays the matching patch lists, select the desired patch and click on the ‘How to apply’ link. Refer to the adjoining screenshot:

Following the above steps, our team resolved the mystery of ‘disappearing products.’ If you want to know the quality patches available for your installed Magento, here’s your guide:

Step 1: Install the Magento Quality Patch module

composer require magento/quality-patches

Step 2: Check the Quality Patch details

./vendor/bin/magento-patches status

Enter option 1

Again, enter option 1

You get all the quality patches displayed along with their status.

Step 3: Apply the particular quality patches

./vendor/bin/magento-patches apply MAGETWO-95591

Step 4: Revert the particular quality patches

./vendor/bin/magento-patches revert MAGETWO-95591

For more information on applying quality patches, refer to this link: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/commerce-cloud-service/user-guide/develop/upgrade/apply-patches.html?lang=en

The Happy Ending

After rectifying the pricing index irregularity, the missing products reappeared on the category pages with the proper pricing without any mismatches. The steps taken by our Magento solution architects helped solve this problem permanently.

This case study stands as a testament to our unwavering commitment to resolving any level of technical complexities. If you want similar solutions for your technical problems, get in touch with our Magento experts for a free discovery call.

If you’d like to know about the client:

Our client, Divers Supply, is a leading sports brand that sells the best quality equipment for all your diving needs. Started 40 years ago as a brick-and-mortar store, the brand has a dynamic online presence with a stunning eCommerce store offering SCUBA training programs, dive travel accessories and great diving equipment deals.