[Bug]: Searches take too long, overwriting later, more specific searches

⚠️ This issue respects the following points: ⚠️

• This is a bug, not a question or a configuration/webserver/proxy issue.
• This issue is not already reported on Github OR Nextcloud Community Forum (I've searched it).
• Nextcloud Server is up to date. See Maintenance and Release Schedule for supported versions.
• I agree to follow Nextcloud's Code of Conduct.

Bug description

In our Nextcloud instance, when searching for a filename it happens reproducible that a small pause between the second and third character leads to a slow query which causes to overwrite search results which already came in after typing more characters.

Steps to reproduce

1. Have a Nextcloud instance with many 100s of 1000s of files.
2. Open the search box
3. Type 2 characters of the name of an existing file, wait a short moment, continue typing

Expected behavior

I expect Nextcloud to know which search results are from which search and throw away search results which belong to an earlier, less specific search, and not to display them

Nextcloud Server version

31

Operating system

Debian/Ubuntu

PHP engine version

PHP 8.4

Web server

Nginx

Database engine version

PostgreSQL

Is this bug present after an update or on a fresh install?

Upgraded to a MAJOR version (ex. 31 to 32)

Are you using the Nextcloud Server Encryption module?

None

What user-backends are you using?

• Default user-backend (database)
• LDAP/ Active Directory
• SSO - SAML
• Other

Configuration report

{
    "system": {
        "passwordsalt": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "secret": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "trusted_domains": [
            "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***"
        ],
        "datadirectory": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbtype": "pgsql",
        "version": "31.0.8.1",
        "overwrite.cli.url": "http:\/\/localhost",
        "dbname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbhost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbport": "",
        "dbtableprefix": "oc_",
        "dbuser": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbpassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "installed": true,
        "instanceid": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "loglevel": 2,
        "maintenance": false,
        "ldapIgnoreNamingRules": false,
        "ldapProviderFactory": "\\OCA\\User_LDAP\\LDAPProviderFactory",
        "memcache.distributed": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "memcache.local": "\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu",
        "memcache.locking": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "redis": {
            "host": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "password": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "port": "6379"
        },
        "trusted_proxies": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "theme": "",
        "maintenance_window_start": 1,
        "default_phone_region": "DE",
        "defaultapp": "dashboard,files",
        "app_install_overwrite": [
            "sharelisting",
            "files_rightclick",
            "files_texteditor"
        ]
    }
}

List of activated Apps

Enabled:
  - activity: 4.0.0
  - announcementcenter: 7.1.4
  - app_api: 5.0.2
  - bruteforcesettings: 4.0.0
  - calendar: 5.3.9
  - camerarawpreviews: 0.8.7
  - circles: 31.0.0
  - cloud_federation_api: 1.14.0
  - comments: 1.21.0
  - contactsinteraction: 1.12.0
  - dashboard: 7.11.0
  - dav: 1.33.0
  - drawio: 3.1.0
  - federatedfilesharing: 1.21.0
  - federation: 1.21.0
  - files: 2.3.1
  - files_downloadlimit: 4.0.0
  - files_external: 1.23.0
  - files_fulltextsearch: 31.0.0
  - files_pdfviewer: 4.0.0
  - files_reminders: 1.4.0
  - files_sharing: 1.23.1
  - files_texteditor: 2.15.1
  - files_versions: 1.24.0
  - firstrunwizard: 4.0.0
  - fulltextsearch: 31.0.0
  - fulltextsearch_elasticsearch: 31.0.0
  - imageconverter: 2.0.5
  - impersonate: 2.0.0
  - keeweb: 0.6.21
  - logreader: 4.0.0
  - lookup_server_connector: 1.19.0
  - nextcloud_announcements: 3.0.0
  - notifications: 4.0.0
  - oauth2: 1.19.1
  - ownpad: 0.13.0
  - password_policy: 3.0.0
  - photos: 4.0.0
  - previewgenerator: 5.9.0
  - privacy: 3.0.0
  - profile: 1.0.0
  - provisioning_api: 1.21.0
  - recommendations: 4.0.0
  - related_resources: 2.0.0
  - serverinfo: 3.0.0
  - settings: 1.14.0
  - sharebymail: 1.21.0
  - sharereview: 1.4.0
  - spreed: 21.1.3
  - support: 3.0.0
  - survey_client: 3.0.0
  - systemtags: 1.21.1
  - text: 5.0.0
  - theming: 2.6.1
  - thesearchpage: 1.2.12
  - twofactor_backupcodes: 1.20.0
  - user_ldap: 1.22.0
  - user_status: 1.11.0
  - viewer: 4.0.0
  - weather_status: 1.11.0
  - webhook_listeners: 1.2.0
  - whiteboard: 1.1.3
  - workflow_media_converter: 1.15.1
  - workflowengine: 2.13.0
Disabled:
  - admin_audit: 1.21.0
  - encryption: 2.19.0 (installed 2.19.0)
  - files_rightclick: 0.15.1 (installed 0.15.1)
  - files_trashbin: 1.21.0 (installed 1.21.0)
  - fulltextsearch_sql: 1.2.0
  - suspicious_login: 9.0.1
  - twofactor_nextcloud_notification: 5.0.0
  - twofactor_totp: 13.0.0-dev.0
  - updatenotification: 1.21.0 (installed 1.2.0)

Nextcloud Signing status

No errors have been found.

Nextcloud Logs

no relevant lines in log

PotsgreSQL Logs

# tail -f /var/lib/postgresql/15/main/log/postgresql-2025-09-29_000000.log
2025-09-29 09:06:57.395 UTC [3675249] nextcloud@nextcloud LOG:  duration: 4199.378 ms  execute <unnamed>: SELECT "file"."fileid", "storage", "path", "path_hash", "file"."parent", "file"."name", "mimetype", "mimepart", "size", "mtime", "storage_mtime", "encrypted", "file"."etag", "file"."permissions", "checksum", "unencrypted_size", "meta"."json" AS "meta_json", "meta"."sync_token" AS "meta_sync_token" FROM "oc_filecache" "file" LEFT JOIN "oc_files_metadata" "meta" ON "file"."fileid" = "meta"."file_id" WHERE ("file"."name" ILIKE $1) AND ((("storage" = $2) AND (("path" = $3) OR ("path" LIKE $4))) OR ("storage" IN ($5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10)) OR (("storage" = $11) AND ("path" = $12)) OR (("storage" = $13) AND (("path" = $14) OR ("path" LIKE $15)))) ORDER BY "mtime" + $16 desc LIMIT 5
2025-09-29 09:06:57.395 UTC [3675249] nextcloud@nextcloud DETAIL:  parameters: $1 = '%17%', $2 = '138', $3 = 'files', $4 = 'files/%', $5 = '594', $6 = '602', $7 = '631', $8 = '616', $9 = '618', $10 = '590', $11 = '76', $12 = 'files/dbdump-otrs-wmfg/otrs-20201212-0300.sql.gz', $13 = '79', $14 = 'files/Austausch Spumi:Kom/Mitgliederversammlungen/Mitgliederversammlung_2021/2021_Mitgliederbereich', $15 = 'files/Austausch Spumi:Kom/Mitgliederversammlungen/Mitgliederversammlung\_2021/2021\_Mitgliederbereich/%', $16 = '0'

Additional info

We already pinpointed the issue to the query taking multiple seconds to complete. Without knowing the architecture of the search we cannot tell for sure if the search couldn't be cancelled after receiving more specific input or if Nextcloud delays execution of the search for a short moment while expecting more keypresses and only starts searching after 400ms or so.

We can provide screen recordings showing the behaviour.

When typing quick enough, this behaviour does not pop up. We even experimented using ElasticSearch and the corresponding FullTextSearch apps but it still happens. It seems that ElasticSearch isn't utilised for searching filenames which makes sense in a sense.

No repository file or test is named in the report. Start by tracing the search-box request that produces the logged oc_filecache query, then compare the request behavior with Elasticsearch enabled; done means results from an earlier, less specific search no longer overwrite results for the newer query.