Only certain categories are returning results using the catalog search API

[Duskie_Dark (Duskie)]

Hi, i’ve been having an issue affecting my game that relates to the catalog search API and have noticed that the behaviour also happens externally from it.

Context
My game uses HTTPService with a proxy using the search.roblox.com API for players to find decals that they can use as characters ingame. It’s a very important feature as most of my players are not aware of how to go through the library and get URL’s for decals. Neither my proxy or game have been changed/updated. This bug is unrelated to them, unless something has changed with the API that I am not aware of.

The issue
The problem I am discovering is that only certain asset types are returning results when using search.roblox.com. I will provide an example below.

This returns a result.
https://search.roblox.com/catalog/json?Subcategory=2&SortType3&ResultsPerPage=10

This does not.
https://search.roblox.com/catalog/json?Subcategory=6&SortType3&ResultsPerPage=10

It is even a link from the catalog API documentation and previously would have returned a result before this issue began, but now it is just [ ]. Notice how the only difference in these links is the specified category that we wish to search, what is happening in example #2 is also happening to my proxy server which searches for decals when a player requests them.

This was perfectly functioning until the early hours of yesterday morning (15th of May, the first report was given to me at approximately 5AM BST.) when I began to get reports of my decal finder not working. Once I checked that my proxy was not the issue, I went into studio and discovered that my game is getting this as a result, though I am unsure if this is related to the bug or simply a consequence of it;

I am not sure if I am missing something or whether this is a truly a bug, but again nothing on my end was updated to cause this problem and it seems that there is either an undocumented change or a bug with the API - This now 100% seems to either be a bug or an undocumented change to the API and has almost halved my player count. Here’s hoping for a resolution or some new documentation shortly.

Thank you.

Edit: I have spoken with some other developers and I am not the only one having this problem. It has completely ruined anything that uses the search API for audio/decals and likely other categories.

[Auxintic (Aux)]

I am having the same issue, would love to see this bug fixed.

EDIT: I might have found a solution.
Use this url: https://search.roblox.com/catalog/json?CatalogContext=2&SortAggregation=5&LegendExpanded=true
And use the parameters you need after it, seems to work for me.

[NewFissy]

This is a serious issue that we’re also experiencing in Adopt Me

https://search.roblox.com/catalog/json?Keyword=music&Category=Audio&ResultsPerPage=15

Our radio gamepass is suddenly returning no results because of the broken search

[Dummiez]

Noticed this a few days ago as well with searching audios, was able temporarily fix the issue with including CatalogContext=2& along the search results. I’m assuming it may have to do with privacy changes to assets and audios that are not free to take are not listed among the results.

[PestoUsesKappa]

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. This change comes as part of our ongoing effort to optimize search results. Our team is actively working on updating the documentation.

Please use the following URL until the documentation is live:

https://search.roblox.com/catalog/json?CatalogContext=2&SortAggregation=5&LegendExpanded=true

CatalogContext=2 will search items in the library catalog page (https://www.roblox.com/develop/library), while not specifying the CatalogContext or setting CatalogContext=1 will default to search in the catalog page (https://www.roblox.com/catalog).

We will update this topic once the page has been updated and release a public post to the Developer community with more information about this change.