Problem with Path Managed property in alternate zones - also we have identified problem with Product catalog in alt zones

Question

Hi All,
I'll start "one step back". Note we have resolved this issue but it is worth mentioning:
Yesterday we set up the product catalog. We were having a lot of inexplicable problems with it initially. After much troubleshooting, we found that it was because we were browsing the SharePoint site via the "Internet Zone" rather than the "Default
Zone" when we "Connected" our site to the product catalog. Issues experienced:
1) "Catalog Item URL Format" displayed error "Properties <Managed Property> specified by the shared catalog could not be found in the search schema" when attempting to connect to the catalog, despite that managed property being
configured correctly. The catalog would connect despite the error, and the navigation worked fine.
2) The search Result Source for the catalog would not return any results. Configuring the query and selecting "Advanced Mode" would show SPSiteURL:http://externalURL.domain.com. Changing SPSiteURL manually to
http://InternalURL resulted in results being returned as expected.
After much troubleshooting, we found that if were browsing SharePoint using the default zone (http://InternalURL) when we connected the Product Catalog, the result source then worked properly (internally and externally).
Ok, so now onto our current problem:
The Product Catalog appeared to be working properly (internally and externally) after figuring out that we needed to connect it from the Default Zone. However, we have found a remaining glitch, which doesn't appear to be Product-Catalog-specific. Consider
the following scenario:
1) We click a category in our Product Catalog, such as Electronics
2) A list of our electronic devices are presented via the "Category" display page
3) If we click on a specific item, a different URL is returned internally vs externally. We only get the friendly managed navigation URL when browsing via the Default zone. And of course totally different pages load based on which URL you get.
Internal (when browsing via Default zone):
http://InternalURL/catalog/PRODUCT-CATEGORY/PRODUCT-NAME
External (when browsing via Internet zone):
http://ExternalURL.domain.com/catalog/Lists/Products/DispForm.aspx?ID=1
We have reviewed the display template, and the "Path" managed property is simply being used to render the link. Furthermore, we have configured the Content Search web part's "Property Mappings" to show the "Path" MP, and it
displays the same (wrong) result externally.
This tells us that the Path MP is not correctly rendering "Friendly URLs" when using managed navigation.
Any help/ideas?
Our environment:
SharePoint Version: 15.0.4667.1000
Default Zone: http://InternalURL
Internet Zone: http://ExternalURL.domain.com
We are NOT using host named site collections
We ARE crawling the Default zone URL in our content source
Thanks,
Tommy

Answer 1

Hi,
We have now also observed the same issue with a Managed Property of type “Hyperlink/Picture”. The picture returns the wrong URL externally.
This post describes the same issue, however the poster found that setting UseAAMMapping=True doesn’t work in 2013:
http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/104806/set-the-useaammapping-property-of-a-managedproperty-object-map-an-url-of-a-h
We checked, and our Picture MP had UseAAMMapping=False. We set it to True, did a full crawl, and see no change in behavior. Path already had UseAAMMapping=True.
More info:
http://macslui.blogspot.com/2013/02/sharepoint-2010-problem-in-image-result.html
https://camerondwyer.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/beware-sharepoint-2013-search-results-and-the-listurl-property/#comment-2606
Thanks,
Tommy