Admin search silently returns no page results when a configured search field has been deleted

[adrianbj]

If a field configured in ProcessPageSearch's search fields is later deleted, the admin live search silently returns zero page results — no error, no warning, no log entry — even for a superuser. Other result types (users, modules, templates, etc.) still work, so it can look like a partial/intermittent failure rather than a config problem.

What happened

I deleted a custom field from a site but left it referenced in the ProcessPageSearch settings (it was still listed in both Search fields and Search fields (ajax/live)). After that, the admin search box stopped returning any page results. There was no indication why — it just came back empty.

The search builds a single OR selector from the configured fields, e.g.:

title|first_name|email|coupon_code|deleted_field%=query

When PageFinder reaches the deleted field it throws PageFinderSyntaxException("Field does not exist: deleted_field") (wire/core/PageFinder/PageFinder.php, in getQueryFieldFulltext()). That exception propagates up to $pages->find() inside ProcessPageSearchLive::findPages(), where it's caught and discarded silently:

  // wire/modules/Process/ProcessPageSearch/ProcessPageSearchLive.php
  try {
      if($this->useType('pages', $liveSearch['type'])) {
          $selector .= ', templates_id!=' . implode('|', $config->userTemplateIDs);
          $items['pages'] = $pages->find("$selector, status<" . Page::statusTrash);
      }
  } catch(\Exception $e) {
  }

The empty catch means the whole page-results branch is dropped with no feedback.

How to reproduce

1. Add an existing field to ProcessPageSearch → Search fields (and the ajax/live list).
2. Delete that field.
3. Use the admin search box for anything that should match a page.

Expected: results return (the invalid field is ignored), and/or an error/log entry explains the problem.
Actual: zero page results, no error, no log entry.

Suggested fixes (either or both)

1. Don't swallow the exception silently in findPages() — log it / surface a notice so the failure is diagnosable instead of invisible. Better still, skip unknown fields and continue so search degrades gracefully.
2. More robustly, have ProcessPageSearch hook field deletion (e.g. Fields::deleted) to prune removed fields from its searchFields/searchFields2 config, so a stale reference never persists in the first place.

[adrianbj]

The only way to fix this at the moment is to edit the settings for the ProcessPageSearch module via Adminer to remove the deleted field because it isn't shown in the GUI.