Windows 10: Cortana search, these results may be incomplete

So I noticed cortana search is often showing a text at the top saying these results may be incomplete please try in a few minutes. But it never goes away. It didn't used to do this. I reckon only in last week or so. There have been no significant changes. I checked indexing and it is all correct and complete. I have given the pc ample idle time whilst logged in. The thing is it doesn't display this text on every search and as far as is can tell search works properly. It seeks and finds all the files apps documents I need quick as a flash. So it's bizarre really. It only appears if there are options for folders or something like that on the search result which I need to click on to reveal the result. Anyone else get the same? This is an anniversary update pc latest version that hasn't yet been offered creators update. It only seems prevalent on my user account and not the others. However, we don't really use the other user accounts much. All the documents, pics are under mine.

i have noted that this is not an uncommon issue but most people reporting this don't actually get search results working properly. Mine works, if it wasn't for this text I wouldn't know anything was up

:)

 

Windows / Cortana search "Results may be incomplete"

Hi Jennifer, thank you for your reply. I just got the Surface, and I've not tried to manually install any updates but of course I think by default it will try to install updates automatically and so some may have been installed that way. In any case,
this is the behavior since I got the computer, it did not suddenly change - search works fine on the original account I created during setup, any account I have added after that however has the problem. I've added (and deleted) several accounts and they all
end up with this problem - some are just local accounts, some are accounts tied to Microsoft accounts, but same issue regardless.

 

Windows / Cortana search "Results may be incomplete"

To start troubleshooting, we recommend that you first run the built-in troubleshooter by going to
Control Panel > View by: Small icons > Troubleshooting > View all > Search and Indexing.

You may also refer a thread related to your concern and check the solutions that worked for other community members. To view the thread, click this
link.

Let us know how it went.

 

Hi: example of 1 possible cause/solution:

Settings: (UK - US ok) Solved - Page 2 - Windows 10 Forums

 

Thank you. I was encouraged by a possible solution but alas the folder was already en-GB. I guess I'll just grin and bear the issue. Maybe at some point it'll sort itself out. Search actually works fine and that text only manifests itself if I click on folders or music to expand them/drill down into them and even then the results are correct (and it doesn't do it for every search). The initial search never shows the message, always looks fine, it's just if one has to expand a sectionime folders, documents or music by clicking on one.

I search for reliability history all the time, I always just type 'rel' and that gives me best match but also has 'folders' unexpanded as part of the search hit. In this case I click folders for in depth results and 100% of the time it will show the spinny wheel and text about results being incomplete on that particular search. I wonder how long it has been there as a problem, maybe the last cumulative update for v1607 is the culprit back on may patch tuesday. I have only noticed it in the last week or so because I never used search loads but it could of been there longer. Of course now I test it all the time since noticing. It could even be a server side issue at MS getting itself into the mix.

 

Ok, now you mention folders and music- a bit more detail- I've just tried searching for music - my large music folder is indexed, but I get exactly the same message in Cortana's dialogue box.

(I use the AU).

I also note the Music folder is specified as This PC, One Drive - and I don't have One Drive running.
Just wondering if that might account for it.

(Way back, this message was usually related to incompletely installing a language pack)

 

Ah. So you see it too. I have one drive enabled on mine. The more I think about it I believe MS server side issue might be causing this glitch. It's frustrating !

 

No, it's not Onedrive - and it's not the equivalent of a green progress bar (which would have meant Cortana search had been extended to non-indexed locations). There's no disk activity...

In the CU, a few are seeing an as yet unresolved message *Some settings are managed.... (with a *) - yet no functional problem.

I'm beginning to think we should no longer expect Windows to be reliable in such matters, and only deal with thing that clearly impinge on us functionally.