Index Management

The Generic Data Index must index all assets, data objects, and documents to power search and listing features in Pimcore.

Console Commands Overview

Command	Description
generic-data-index:update:index	Update index mappings and queue all elements for reindex from the database
generic-data-index:update:index -r	Delete and recreate indices, then queue all elements
generic-data-index:reindex	Native search engine reindex (reorganizes data within existing indices, no database read)
generic-data-index:deployment:reindex	Update indices only for class definitions changed since the last deployment

Index Prefix

Define an index name prefix to avoid naming collisions in shared search engine clusters. The default prefix is pimcore_.

pimcore_generic_data_index:
    index_service:
        client_params:
            index_prefix: 'my_prefix'

Created Indices

The Generic Data Index creates the following indices:

• Assets - one alias and one index
• Data objects - one alias and one index per class definition

Each index uses an alias (e.g. <prefix>_asset) pointing to the current index (e.g. <prefix>_asset-odd). The alias name stays constant; the backing index alternates between -odd and -even suffixes during reindexing (see Updating index structure below).

Why -odd and -even Suffixes?

The alternating suffixes enable zero-downtime reindexing (blue-green approach): when the index structure changes, the bundle builds a new index under the opposite suffix while the current index keeps serving reads and writes through the alias. Once the new index is fully populated, the alias is switched atomically and the old index is deleted.

At rest there is only one concrete index — and therefore one set of shards — per asset index or class definition. Both suffixes exist side by side only transiently while a reindex is running. If -odd and -even indices for the same alias exist permanently, they are leftovers from a reindex that was interrupted (e.g. by a killed process) before its cleanup could run. Such orphaned indices are not used by the bundle and can safely be deleted, as long as they are not referenced by any alias.

The default index settings use number_of_shards: 1, so the total shard count of the cluster scales with the number of class definitions — not with the suffix scheme.

Keeping Indices Up to Date

Create and update indices with:

bin/console generic-data-index:update:index

This command creates the indices and queues all assets and data objects for indexing. The Symfony Messenger pimcore_generic_data_index_queue transport processes the queue.

Index Refresh

By default, the index refreshes after each bulk operation since items are processed asynchronously via Symfony Messenger.

To force synchronous processing (immediate refresh), inject SynchronousProcessingServiceInterface and call enable():

Method	Description
enable()	Enable synchronous processing
disable()	Disable synchronous processing
isEnabled()	Check current mode

Queue Options

Configure the indexing queue batch behavior:

Option	Default	Description
worker_count	1	Number of parallel messenger:consume workers. Improves batch size calculation.
min_batch_size	5	Minimum items per batch (relevant with multiple workers)
max_batch_size	400	Maximum items per batch

The queue calculates batch sizes dynamically between min_batch_size and max_batch_size based on the number of workers and queue depth.

pimcore_generic_data_index:
    index_service:
        queue_settings:
            worker_count: 1
            min_batch_size: 5
            max_batch_size: 400

Related Elements

Updating an element automatically enqueues its related elements for reindexing. By default, this runs asynchronously through Symfony Messenger.

For immediate processing, use SynchronousProcessingRelatedIdsServiceInterface:

Method	Description
enable()	Activate synchronous processing
disable()	Revert to asynchronous processing
isEnabled()	Return current processing mode

info

SynchronousProcessingRelatedIdsServiceInterface does not affect delete operations. Deletes always process synchronously.

Repairing Indices

To delete and recreate an index from the Pimcore database (e.g. after an incompatible mapping change), pass the -r option:

bin/console generic-data-index:update:index -r

Without -r, the command only updates the index mapping and queues all items for reindex.

Updating Index Structure

Index mappings update automatically when system languages or class definition fields change. For manual updates, run the reindex command. This performs a native OpenSearch/Elasticsearch reindex within the search indices (no database read):

bin/console generic-data-index:reindex

Reindex Options

Native reindexing is submitted as an asynchronous task to OpenSearch/Elasticsearch and its progress is polled until the task has finished. Two options control how long the process waits:

• max_polls (default 720): maximum number of polling attempts before the reindex is aborted
• poll_interval (default 5): seconds to wait between two status polls

With the defaults, a reindex may therefore run for up to one hour (720 × 5 seconds). If reindexing an index takes longer than this budget, the command aborts with an error and a non-zero exit code — increase max_polls for very large indices:

pimcore_generic_data_index:
    index_service:
        reindex_settings:
            max_polls: 720
            poll_interval: 5

Transient failures while polling (e.g. a temporarily unreachable or overloaded search cluster) are retried and do not abort a running reindex. If reindexing fails for a different reason — the cluster is unreachable, the task reports an error or times out server-side — the command fails instead of modifying the live index, and the reindex is retried on the next run. The index is only recreated (and repopulated via the index queue) when the already indexed documents are incompatible with the new mapping, for example after a field type change.

Handling Failed Messages

The messenger retries failed messages 3 times, then routes them to the pimcore_generic_data_index_failed transport. Retry failed messages with:

bin/console messenger:failed:retry -vv

See the Symfony Messenger documentation for additional commands.

Index Options

Configure search engine-specific index options. Check your engine's documentation for available settings.

Maximum Result Window

The default limit of retrievable items is 10,000. Increase it with:

pimcore_generic_data_index:
    index_service:
        index_settings:
            max_result_window: 20000

Total Fields Limit

The default field limit per index is 1,000. Increase it with:

pimcore_generic_data_index:
    index_service:
        index_settings:
            mapping.total_fields.limit: 20000

info

If the index already exists, recreate it after changing this setting:

bin/console generic-data-index:update:index -r

Deployment and Index Management

Class Definition Changes

After updating class definitions during deployment, run:

bin/console generic-data-index:deployment:reindex

This updates the index structure for all class definitions modified since the last deployment and reindexes data objects for affected classes.

Calculated Fields Index Mode

By default, values of calculated value fields are computed live while index data is extracted: the field's calculator class is executed for every calculated field of every element on every (re)indexing — for localized calculated fields once per language. For expensive calculators (relation loads, external services) this can dominate the indexing cost on large installations.

With the query_store mode, the value stored in the object's query table (written on every save — the same value SQL-based grid listings use) is indexed instead, and the calculator is never executed during indexing:

pimcore_generic_data_index:
    index_service:
        calculated_fields_index_mode: 'query_store' # default: 'live'

Notes:

• The indexed value is the save-time snapshot as a string, truncated to the field definition's columnLength (default 190). The fields stay searchable, filterable and sortable.
• Changed calculator logic is only reflected after an element is saved again (see Refreshing calculated values after a calculator change below).
• Calculated fields inside field collections and object bricks are not read from the query store and keep live behavior.
• Switching the mode does not change the index mapping, so it does not trigger an automatic reindex: values converge as elements are saved or reprocessed by the index queue.

Refreshing calculated values after a calculator change

In query_store mode the indexed value is the save-time snapshot stored in the object's query table (object_query_*), which is (re)written only when an object is saved. Changing a calculator's code therefore does not update already-stored values on its own — exactly as with Pimcore's classic SQL grids and listings, which read the same query-table snapshot.

To refresh calculated values after a calculator change, re-save the affected objects (e.g. a short console command that loads the class's objects in chunks and calls ->save() on each). A save recomputes the calculated fields, rewrites object_query_*, and enqueues the element for reindexing, so both the query table and the index pick up the new logic. For large object counts, batch the re-save and disable versioning for the run to reduce cost.

A dedicated command to recompute the query-table snapshots without a full object save is planned as a follow-up.