GitHub code search suddenly stopped working for my repos and ChatGPT can no longer see them as indexed

[RusbehAbtahi]

GitHub code search appears to have regressed suddenly for multiple public repositories in my account.

Affected repos:

• RusbehAbtahi/RAGstream
• RusbehAbtahi/Aistratus

Context:

• These repositories were already usable before.
• I had been using GitHub-connected ChatGPT with them for about 2 months.
• Today ChatGPT suddenly showed them as not indexed / unavailable.
• I then went to GitHub directly to trigger search/indexing again, and GitHub itself failed.

What I see in the GitHub web UI:

• Query: repo:RusbehAbtahi/RAGstream import
• Result page shows: "Search failed. Please try again later."

What I see in GitHub CLI:

• Command: gh search code import --repo RusbehAbtahi/RAGstream --limit 10
• Result: HTTP 500: internal server error

What I already checked:

• Repo is public
• Default branch is main
• Problem happens across multiple repos, so it does not look repo-specific
• GitHub CLI authentication is working correctly

Expected behavior:

• Existing repositories that were previously searchable should remain searchable
• Manual search should not fail with server error

Actual behavior:

• Web UI shows "Search failed. Please try again later."
• CLI search returns HTTP 500
• Repositories that previously worked now appear broken for code search / indexing

This looks like a GitHub code-search/indexing backend regression rather than a repository content issue. Please investigate.

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[Manjunatha-kv01]

This looks like a GitHub code search backend issue, not a problem with your repos.

You’ve already validated the key signals:

• Web UI failing with “Search failed”
• CLI returning HTTP 500
• Multiple repos affected
• Previously indexed repos suddenly unavailable

All of these point to a temporary indexing/search service regression on GitHub’s side.

What you can do now:

• Wait and retry after some time (these issues are usually resolved quickly)
• Check GitHub Status: https://www.githubstatus.com/
• Try a small commit/push to trigger re-indexing:

git commit --allow-empty -m "trigger reindex"
git push

Important:
Since ChatGPT relies on GitHub indexing, it will also fail until GitHub search is restored.

[annnnnnnn]

[jasonmarie8]

Yeah, that definitely sounds like a backend issue on GitHub’s side especially with the HTTP 500 and multiple repos affected, not much you can fix locally. Probably worth waiting it out or checking their status page. Funny how these sudden breaks feel, like expecting jasmine's jamaican rum cake to turn out perfect and something just glitches at the last step.

[RusbehAbtahi]

Thanks everyone for the help. It started working again by itself after about 15 hours, so it looks like this was a temporary internal GitHub code-search/indexing issue rather than a repository-side problem. I appreciate your support.

[shubham055555]

Thanks for sharing the detailed report.

Based on the symptoms (UI search failure, CLI HTTP 500, and multiple repositories affected simultaneously), this clearly points to a backend indexing or code search service issue rather than a repository-level problem.

It is good to see that the issue resolved automatically after some time, which further confirms it was likely a temporary outage or regression in GitHub’s code search infrastructure.

For future reference, a few quick checks that can help validate such issues:

• Test search across multiple repositories (to rule out repo-specific problems)
• Use both Web UI and GitHub CLI to confirm consistency
• Check GitHub Status for any ongoing incidents
• Trigger a small commit/push only if the issue persists for an extended period

Also worth noting:
Since tools like ChatGPT rely on GitHub indexing, any disruption in GitHub’s search backend can directly impact their ability to access repository content.

Appreciate the detailed debugging steps shared in this thread—it makes it much easier to identify platform-level issues.