elasticsearch-php: Search method returns NULL

I’m having a puzzling problem with a website that uses Elasticsearch—Elasticsearch is returning results to elasticsearch-php, which is then mysteriously failing to output them. This is with Elasticsearch v0.90.9, elasticsearch-php v0.4.5, and PHP v5.3.10. (Just in case, I’ve also tried elasticsearch-php v1.2.0, despite its incompatibility with pre-v1.0 Elasticsearch, which presented precisely the same problem.)

When I directly query my Elasticsearch index, Elasticsearch happily returns the results. That’s if I make the request via cURL. If I make the request via elasticsearch-php, Elasticsearch still returns the results, but they don’t make it past elasticsearch-php.

For example, here I search for a term that I know will return a small number of results (Jaquith, my last name) from my index (business) of a couple of million records:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
$config['logging'] = TRUE;
$client = new Elasticsearch\Client($config);
$params['index'] = 'business';
$params['body']['query']['match']['_all'] = 'Jaquith';
$result = $client->search($params);
var_dump($result);

The output of var_dump($result) is NULL. Not false, but NULL. If I I deliberately specify invalid options, such as an invalid index (e.g., $params['index'] = 'fake_index'), then it returns false, so it’s not like it can only return NULL.

Where things get weird is when looking at elasticsearch.log. Here is what’s logged from the execution of the above:

[2014-08-04 21:34:13] log.DEBUG: Request Body ["{\"query\":{\"match\":{\"_all\":\"Jaquith\"}}}"] {"file":"/vol/www/business.openva.com/htdocs/vendor/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/src/Elasticsearch/Connections/AbstractConnection.php","line":113,"class":"Elasticsearch\\Connections\\AbstractConnection","function":"logRequestSuccess"}
[2014-08-04 21:34:13] log.INFO: Request Success: {"method":"POST","uri":"http://localhost:9200/business/_search","headers":{"host":["localhost:9200"],"user-agent":["Guzzle/3.9.1 curl/7.22.0 PHP/5.3.10-1ubuntu3.13"],"content-length":[38]},"HTTP code":200,"duration":0.009757} {"file":"/vol/www/business.openva.com/htdocs/vendor/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/src/Elasticsearch/Connections/AbstractConnection.php","line":123,"class":"Elasticsearch\\Connections\\AbstractConnection","function":"logRequestSuccess"}
[2014-08-04 21:34:13] log.DEBUG: Response ["{\"took\":7,\"timed_out\":false,\"_shards\":{\"total\":5,\"successful\":5,\"failed\":0},\"hits\":{\"total\":4,\"max_score\":6.5482264,\"hits\":[{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"5\",\"_id\":\"ZTU0BFYcSIWQWZYdCaNS1g\",\"_score\":6.5482264, \"_source\" : {\"first_name\": \"MARY\", \"last_name\": \"JAQUITH\", \"middle_name\": \"\", \"id\": \"0562703\", \"title\": \"PRESIDENT\"},},{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"5\",\"_id\":\"L9PNiEdUSGmbZAq1bgPjQQ\",\"_score\":4.9117994, \"_source\" : {\"first_name\": \"MARY\", \"last_name\": \"JAQUITH\", \"middle_name\": \"T\", \"id\": \"0562703\", \"title\": \"S/T\"},},{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"9\",\"_id\":\"C7Web8w6T0S1zhyUtbjaAw\",\"_score\":2.0459418, \"_source\" : {\"expiration-date\": null, \"agent-state\": \"VA\", \"agent_status\": \"1\", \"agent_court_locality\": \"LOUDOUN COUNTY\", \"state-formed\": \"VIRGINIA\", \"id\": \"S496907\", \"agent-name\": \"NATALIE ANDERSON JAQUITH\", \"city\": \"Sterling\", \"zip\": \"20164\", \"state\": \"VA\", \"agent-city\": \"STERLING\", \"status\": \"ACTIVE\", \"agent_zip\": \"20164\", \"street-2\": \"\", \"street-1\": \"206 Laura Anne Drive\", \"date\": \"2014-03-17\", \"agent-street-1\": \"206 LAURA ANNE DRIVE\", \"agent_date\": \"2014-03-17\", \"name\": \"Happy Little Paintings, LLC\", \"agent-street-2\": \"\", \"industry\": \"00\", \"status-date\": \"2014-03-17\", \"address-date\": null},},{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"2\",\"_id\":\"0LYakZfaTaKj4lGxaF0hGw\",\"_score\":1.6373172, \"_source\" : {\"agent_name\": \"MARY G JAQUITH\", \"address_date\": null, \"stock_ind\": \"S\", \"agent_status\": \"OFFICER\", \"agent_court_locality\": \"VIRGINIA BEACH CITY\", \"total_shares\": \"00000005000\", \"incorporation_date\": \"2001-08-02\", \"stock_class\": \"00000000\", \"id\": \"0562703\", \"city\": \"VA BEACH\", \"zip\": \"23457\", \"state\": \"VA\", \"assessment\": \"NORMAL ASSESSMENT\", \"merged\": \"\", \"state_formed\": \"VIRGINIA\", \"status\": \"ACTIVE\", \"agent_zip\": \"23457\", \"agent_city\": \"VIRGINIA BEACH\", \"status_date\": \"2009-03-10\", \"street_1\": \"4166 CHARITY NECK ROAD\", \"street_2\": \"\", \"agent_date\": \"2013-04-29\", \"name\": \"CORNERSTONE FARMS, LTD.\", \"expiration_date\": null, \"industry\": \"GENERAL\", \"agent_street_1\": \"4166 CHARITY NECK RD.\", \"agent_street_2\": \"\", \"number_shares\": \"00000000000\", \"agent_state\": \"VA\"},}]}}"] {"file":"/vol/www/business.openva.com/htdocs/vendor/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/src/Elasticsearch/Connections/AbstractConnection.php","line":124,"class":"Elasticsearch\\Connections\\AbstractConnection","function":"logRequestSuccess"}
[2014-08-04 21:34:13] trace.INFO: curl -XPOST 'http://localhost:9200/business/_search?pretty=true' -d '{"query":{"match":{"_all":"Jaquith"}}}' [] []
[2014-08-04 21:34:13] trace.DEBUG: Response: {"response":"{\"took\":7,\"timed_out\":false,\"_shards\":{\"total\":5,\"successful\":5,\"failed\":0},\"hits\":{\"total\":4,\"max_score\":6.5482264,\"hits\":[{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"5\",\"_id\":\"ZTU0BFYcSIWQWZYdCaNS1g\",\"_score\":6.5482264, \"_source\" : {\"first_name\": \"MARY\", \"last_name\": \"JAQUITH\", \"middle_name\": \"\", \"id\": \"0562703\", \"title\": \"PRESIDENT\"},},{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"5\",\"_id\":\"L9PNiEdUSGmbZAq1bgPjQQ\",\"_score\":4.9117994, \"_source\" : {\"first_name\": \"MARY\", \"last_name\": \"JAQUITH\", \"middle_name\": \"T\", \"id\": \"0562703\", \"title\": \"S/T\"},},{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"9\",\"_id\":\"C7Web8w6T0S1zhyUtbjaAw\",\"_score\":2.0459418, \"_source\" : {\"expiration-date\": null, \"agent-state\": \"VA\", \"agent_status\": \"1\", \"agent_court_locality\": \"LOUDOUN COUNTY\", \"state-formed\": \"VIRGINIA\", \"id\": \"S496907\", \"agent-name\": \"NATALIE ANDERSON JAQUITH\", \"city\": \"Sterling\", \"zip\": \"20164\", \"state\": \"VA\", \"agent-city\": \"STERLING\", \"status\": \"ACTIVE\", \"agent_zip\": \"20164\", \"street-2\": \"\", \"street-1\": \"206 Laura Anne Drive\", \"date\": \"2014-03-17\", \"agent-street-1\": \"206 LAURA ANNE DRIVE\", \"agent_date\": \"2014-03-17\", \"name\": \"Happy Little Paintings, LLC\", \"agent-street-2\": \"\", \"industry\": \"00\", \"status-date\": \"2014-03-17\", \"address-date\": null},},{\"_index\":\"business\",\"_type\":\"2\",\"_id\":\"0LYakZfaTaKj4lGxaF0hGw\",\"_score\":1.6373172, \"_source\" : {\"agent_name\": \"MARY G JAQUITH\", \"address_date\": null, \"stock_ind\": \"S\", \"agent_status\": \"OFFICER\", \"agent_court_locality\": \"VIRGINIA BEACH CITY\", \"total_shares\": \"00000005000\", \"incorporation_date\": \"2001-08-02\", \"stock_class\": \"00000000\", \"id\": \"0562703\", \"city\": \"VA BEACH\", \"zip\": \"23457\", \"state\": \"VA\", \"assessment\": \"NORMAL ASSESSMENT\", \"merged\": \"\", \"state_formed\": \"VIRGINIA\", \"status\": \"ACTIVE\", \"agent_zip\": \"23457\", \"agent_city\": \"VIRGINIA BEACH\", \"status_date\": \"2009-03-10\", \"street_1\": \"4166 CHARITY NECK ROAD\", \"street_2\": \"\", \"agent_date\": \"2013-04-29\", \"name\": \"CORNERSTONE FARMS, LTD.\", \"expiration_date\": null, \"industry\": \"GENERAL\", \"agent_street_1\": \"4166 CHARITY NECK RD.\", \"agent_street_2\": \"\", \"number_shares\": \"00000000000\", \"agent_state\": \"VA\"},}]}}","method":"POST","uri":"http://localhost:9200/business/_search","HTTP code":200,"duration":0.009757} []

Elasticsearch returns results just fine. Somewhere between elasticsearch-php receiving that JSON and returning the content as PHP it’s becoming, simply, NULL.

There’s a non-trivial chance that I’m doing something stupid here, but I can’t figure out what it is. Any ideas of what’s going on?