Issue Summary

Issue Navigator fails when jira.search.platform.max.result.window is to a value lower than the jira.search.stable.max.results. 

When the jira.search.platform.max.result.window system property is configured with a value lower than the jira.search.stable.max.results setting (default 1000), the Issue Navigator fails to return any results. This occurs because the stable search mechanism requests a minimum of 1000 results, which is then rejected by the platform-level validation.

• jira.search.platform.max.result.window was introduced in Jira 11.2.0 to prevent node instability caused by resource-intensive JQL operations. It is implemented via system property in the jira-config.properties file - more details in Preventing crashes with JQL resilience.

• jira.search.stable.max.results is an Advanced Setting that limits the number of issues returned in the Issue Navigator. Its minimum allowable value is 1000.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Verify that the Search Engine is set to Lucene
2. Ensure jira.search.stable.max.results = 1000 (default in Advanced Settings)
3. Add the feature flag com.atlassian.jira.lucene.search.limit.enabled into the dark feature administration page (<BASE_URL>/secure/admin/SiteDarkFeatures!default.jspa)
4. Set jira.search.platform.max.result.window = 500 in jira-config.properties
5. Restart Jira
6. Navigate to Issue Navigator and perform any search (eg: key = SCRUM-1)

Expected Results

The search should either limit results to the maximum platform window (500), or gracefully adapt to the platform limit, or configuration validation should prevent this conflicting state.

Actual Results

All searches in the Issue Navigator fail with a "Search limit exceeded" error. This results in a total loss of core search functionality without a clear indication that a configuration conflict is the root cause.

The below exception is thrown in the atlassian-jira.log file:

2026-06-15 15:43:16,457+1000 http-nio-1136-exec-3 url: /jira1136/rest/issueNav/1/issueTable; user: admin ERROR admin 943x289x2 3mo4n7 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 /rest/issueNav/1/issueTable [c.a.j.p.i.service.issuetable.DefaultIssueTableService] Error searching
com.atlassian.jira.issue.search.RenderableSearchException: Search limit exceeded. We couldn't complete your search because it requests 1,000 results which exceeded the search platform limit of 500. Try refining your query or contact your Jira administrator. Repeating the same search may not work.
	at com.atlassian.jira.issue.search.RenderableSearchException.withI18nKey(RenderableSearchException.java:40)
	at com.atlassian.jira.search.BaseIndexSearcher.ensureSearchRequestWithinLimits(BaseIndexSearcher.java:29)
	at com.atlassian.jira.search.lucene.LuceneIndexSearcher.search(LuceneIndexSearcher.java:87) 

Workaround

Set jira.search.platform.max.result.window to a value greater than or equal to jira.search.stable.max.results.

Note: A Jira restart is required for this change to take effect.