Magento products have suddenly stopped appearing in New Products and Search

Question

We've recently noticed that only the items in the root folder of a category will show up in the New Products block on the homepage and as results via the Search Box.

I've tried flushing the cache, re-indexing the tables and I've double checked that my date ranges are correct and all items are in stock etc.

Any ideas on how to solve this?

Answer 1

Ok so here's the solution.

It's as simple as disabling the required products and then re-enabling them.

TIP: If doing this in bulk, do NOT do 200 products at a time as it will freeze and you may be locked out of admin. I had a hair raising few minutes by doing that. I restarted my machine and then all was well again.