Elastic Search interferes with the default sort order of products (changing newest first to oldest first)

[zigojacko]

Preconditions (*)

1. Magento 2.4-develop
2. 2.3.5-p1 is all I have tested this in so far.

Steps to reproduce (*)

• Create a category in Magento with several products in it, all have the position in the category set to the value 1
  

• Go to category page

Expected result (*)

1. The newest products in the database (the one with the highest entity_id) are shown first
   
2. The Order by for the SQL query for retrieving the products

 SELECT `e`.*, `cat_index`.`position` AS `cat_index_position`, `price_index`.`price`, `price_index`.`tax_class_id`, `price_index`.`final_price`, IF(price_index.tier_price IS NOT NULL, LEAST(price_index.min_price, price_index.tier_price), price_index.min_price) AS `minimal_price`, `price_index`.`min_price`, `price_index`.`max_price`, `price_index`.`tier_price` FROM `catalog_product_entity` AS `e`
 INNER JOIN `catalog_category_product_index_store1` AS `cat_index` ON cat_index.product_id=e.entity_id AND cat_index.store_id=1 AND cat_index.visibility IN(2, 4) AND cat_index.category_id=33
 INNER JOIN `catalog_product_index_price` AS `price_index` ON price_index.entity_id = e.entity_id AND price_index.customer_group_id = 0 AND price_index.website_id = '1' ORDER BY `cat_index`.`position` asc, `e`.`entity_id` DESC

Actual result (*)

1. The oldest products(with the lower entity_id) are shown first
   
2. The Order by for the SQL query for retrieving the products

SELECT `e`.*, `price_index`.`price`, `price_index`.`tax_class_id`, `price_index`.`final_price`, IF(price_index.tier_price IS NOT NULL, LEAST(price_index.min_price, price_index.tier_price), price_index.min_price) AS `minimal_price`, `price_index`.`min_price`, `price_index`.`max_price`, `price_index`.`tier_price`, IFNULL(review_summary.reviews_count, 0) AS `reviews_count`, IFNULL(review_summary.rating_summary, 0) AS `rating_summary`, `stock_status_index`.`stock_status` AS `is_salable` FROM `catalog_product_entity` AS `e`
 INNER JOIN `catalog_product_index_price` AS `price_index` ON price_index.entity_id = e.entity_id AND price_index.customer_group_id = 0 AND price_index.website_id = '1'
 LEFT JOIN `review_entity_summary` AS `review_summary` ON e.entity_id = review_summary.entity_pk_value AND review_summary.store_id = 1 AND review_summary.entity_type = (SELECT `review_entity`.`entity_id` FROM `review_entity` WHERE (entity_code = 'product'))
 INNER JOIN `cataloginventory_stock_status` AS `stock_status_index` ON e.entity_id = stock_status_index.product_id AND stock_status_index.website_id = 0 AND stock_status_index.stock_id = 1 WHERE (stock_status_index.stock_status = 1) AND (e.entity_id IN (1201, 1202, 1203)) ORDER BY FIELD(e.entity_id,1201,1202,1203)

⚠️ Note: In Magento 2.3.6 with Search Engine=MySQL the newest product in the database (the one with the highest entity_id) was shown first. With Magento 2.4-develop with Search Engine= Elasticsearch 7 this behaviour changed. The oldest product is shown first, the newest last.

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Please provide Severity assessment for the Issue as Reporter. This information will help during Confirmation and Issue triage processes.

• Severity: S0 - Affects critical data or functionality and leaves users without workaround.
• Severity: S1 - Affects critical data or functionality and forces users to employ a workaround.
• Severity: S2 - Affects non-critical data or functionality and forces users to employ a workaround.
• Severity: S3 - Affects non-critical data or functionality and does not force users to employ a workaround.
• Severity: S4 - Affects aesthetics, professional look and feel, “quality” or “usability”.

The severity of this issue will differ between niches but for some businesses, this is quite critical. Like designer or boutique fashion retailers where the target audience frequent the website to view the latest items to hit the fashion lines etc.

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I can't believe there are not more reports of this... I did ask the question on Magento Stack Exchange and it is passed by will hardly any views and zero interaction.

I'm obviously assuming this is a bug and not meant to happen.

[m2-assistant]

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[m2-assistant]

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[m2-assistant]

Hi @engcom-Delta. Thank you for working on this issue.
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[engcom-Delta]

Hi @zigojacko thank you for your report, I'm not able to reproduce issue by steps you described on clean 2.4-develop with elasticsearch
Manual testing scenario:

• Install magento with elasticsearch
• Set Price default sort order of products on category page
  
• Go to category page
  Result:
  ✔️ Products is sorted by price on category page
  
• Go to Catalog->Categories
• Set Display Settings->Default Product Listing Sort By=Product Name for another category
• Go to category page

Result:
✔️ Products is sorted by product name on category page

Please feel free to comment, reopen or create new ticket according to the Issue reporting guidelines
if you are still facing this issue on the latest 2.4-develop branch.

[zigojacko]

@engcom-Delta you haven't understood the problem and don't show the testing of it.

This has been confirmed in a fresh install of Magento 2 and the problem is apparent.

It is also reported across the other web by other users.

The issue is not that sorting by attribute is not working at all. It is that the default sorting is reversed. So by default, sort order will be in the order that the products have been added (newest first) providing custom sort position not set in category.

Your test doesn't show this at all.

Please can you re-open and test for the actual issue?

[zigojacko]

As an example, see this demo store.

In this category, I just added a new product and set the same 'Position' for the product as all the others ('1').

You will see the product is at the end of the list. Even though it is newer than all the others.

If I then switch Elastic Search off and revert to the default MySQL, the newest product will switch to first in the list (as will the entire product listing reverse).

This is the problem @engcom-Delta

Please could someone re-open this issue?