Bug: Vector store status: completed does not guarantee searchability - file_search returns empty results silently

Facing a similar issue when using file_search in the Assistants API (semantic search on the retrieval API may also be affected). I’ve implemented a fallback semantic search function and added instructions to use this fallback function if file_search doesn’t find any results. The fallback function takes a query and uses OpenAI’s retrieval API to find relevant chunks from my vector store and include them in the current context.

Whenever file_search doesn’t find any results, the fallback function is called immediately but it also doesn’t find any relevant chunks. However, if I hit the retrieval API manually via curl, with the exact same query, configs and everything else, searching the same vector store, I get chunks (most of the time). The search fails approx once every 50 requests, and I haven’t been able to reliably reproduce the failure.

Seems like an issue with the vector stores availability, and not the file_search tool specifically.