Trouble searching user custom fields

zogstrip · June 9, 2026, 8:46pm

I couldn’t find when it used to work but I was able to fix (or rather make consistent) both code paths

github.com/discourse/discourse

FIX: Match searchable custom fields when searching the user directory (#40698)

main ← directory-search-custom-fields

opened 05:04PM - 09 Jun 26 UTC

ZogStriP

+96 -11

Previously, the user directory (`/u`) search only matched usernames -- it never …found people by their *searchable* user custom field values (e.g. "Company" or "Member ID"), even though the quick search did. The gap appeared whenever `enable_names` was off or the term contained `_`, `.` or `-`, so member IDs, emails and phone numbers never matched. This change lets the directory search those fields too, via an opt-in `search_custom_fields:` option on `UserSearch` that searches the `user_search_data` tsvector (mention autocomplete and chat are unchanged). It also escapes `LIKE` wildcards in the search term with `sanitize_sql_like`, and adds a tooltip warning that the "Searchable" toggle makes a field's value publicly findable in search. Reported at https://meta.discourse.org/t/trouble-searching-user-custom-fields/404800

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Trouble searching user custom fields

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