Search results - item count doesn't match up to actual count

Question

Getting a weird issue on my Magento search results page.

Basically, it says "17 item(s)" in the header, yet if I manually count them up, I only have 12!

That was by selecting "all" from the item drop down. If I select "15", it gives me an additional page where it tells me there's no results.

It uses fulltext, but I've tried it with like, with a similar outcome. I've also reindexed and cached the heck out of it, but to no avail.

Struggling to think why it suggests there are 5 extra products coming through.

Can anyone help?

Solution

It appears it's because I'm using Amasty's Customer Group Catalog.

Basically, you can hide products from customer groups, but for some reason it doesn't fully hide them from the search, hence the miscount.

I've contacted Amasty who'll investigate, so hopefully this is just a bug.

It's quite a niche problem to have, but I hope this at least helps someone.

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