I am writing to formally report a persistent and critical issue regarding the visibility of new projects on the Scratch platform.
Recently, a significant number of users, including myself, have observed that any project with a Project ID exceeding approximately 1.2 billion (1,200,000,000) is failing to appear in search results and the “Trending” or “Recent” sections.
This is not a simple case of “server delay” or “high traffic”.
Even after waiting for weeks, these projects remain invisible to the community unless accessed via a direct link. This situation creates an unfair environment where new creators are systematically excluded from the community's discovery mechanisms.
While some users claim this is a “specification” or “temporary server lag,” the evidence suggests a fundamental backend issue. In modern web services, it is unheard of for a database entry to be excluded from search indexes simply because its ID reached a certain threshold. If this were a minor lag, it would have been resolved by now. The fact that it has persisted for so long indicates a scalability limit or a bug in the indexing algorithm that handles IDs beyond the 1.2 billion mark.
As Scratch is a platform designed to encourage creativity and sharing, the inability for new works to be discovered is a fatal flaw. We understand that the Scratch Team operates on limited resources and donations, but the integrity of the search and discovery system should be a top priority to ensure the platform remains functional for its 100 million+ users.
Could you please provide an official update on whether this is a known technical limitation or an active bug? Many creators are discouraged by this “invisible wall,” and we believe that addressing this database/indexing issue is essential for the future of Scratch.
Thank you for your hard work and for maintaining this platform. I look forward to hearing about a potential fix or a timeline for resolution.

I live in Japan, so it may take some time to reply, but please understand.

Best regards,
rrrrrrrrrrhhhhht

Common bug, the scratch team will fix it in 4.0 next year.

Was there an official statement that “Scratch Team will fix it in Scratch 4.0 next year”?
If it's true, please tell me the URL.

I've recently shared a project with the ID 591,149,400 and it doesn't appear in Search. (although I've heard that there is a lower threshold so maybe I should try a higher project ID like 1,19X,XXX,XXX)

nembence wrote:

I've recently shared a project with the ID 591,149,400 and it doesn't appear in Search. (although I've heard that there is a lower threshold so maybe I should try a higher project ID like 1,19X,XXX,XXX)

That’s because the search indexer is completely broken and isn’t indexing any projects even if the project ID happens to be under 1.19B

The indexer is kind of dead. There has been no formal announcement on when they'll actually fix it, along with the dozen other bugs on this site (at least that I know of), so you may have to wait a while.

As others have said, it's not a project id cutoff, it's that the indexer hasn't indexed anything for several months.

cookedasparagus8 wrote:

Common bug, the scratch team will fix it in 4.0 next year.

i am not sure if 4.0 will even be an actual version or if it will even be released at all

#4

Thank you for providing the information.
It's also happening in projects with about 600 million Project IDs.
In that case, it has become more difficult to think of “just a delay in server updates”.

Johnsnyder50 wrote:

cookedasparagus8 wrote:

Common bug, the scratch team will fix it in 4.0 next year.

i am not sure if 4.0 will even be an actual version or if it will even be released at all

They've talked about the 4.0 update on the Scratch Foundation site and the jobs section. It's probable that there is going to be an update, 4.0 or not.

chenzero1five wrote:

The indexer is kind of dead. There has been no formal announcement on when they'll actually fix it, along with the dozen other bugs on this site (at least that I know of), so you may have to wait a while.

The promotion servers, explore page, and search results are down AGAIN

Thank goodness i have 500 unshared projects that their ids are less than 1.2 billion.

GunesKing wrote:

(#12)
Thank goodness i have 500 unshared projects that their ids are less than 1.2 billion.

Unshared projects won't help you.
This prolem has nothing to do with the project id and instead has to do with when the project was shared.