Why is my custom field in the saved search results but blank on every row?

Because Store Value is unticked on the custom field record. Nothing is being stored, so there is nothing for the search to return. The field itself is fine, it is listed, it selects, it resolves, and it hands you a column of blanks.

Minimal reproduction

A transaction body custom field, Free-Form Text, script id custbody_probe_h01_storeval, with Store Value unticked and everything else at baseline. It was then used three ways in a Transaction search:

as a Results column      runs, returns empty for every row
inside a formula         runs, returns empty for every row
as a Criteria filter     runs; "is empty" matched every row in the table

Not one of the three raised an error.

The criteria case is the dangerous one

A blank column is at least visible. A filter that matches everything is not.

Because no row has a stored value, "is empty" on that field is true for every row in the table, and the search returns the whole table. The row count that comes back looks like a real answer and the filter sits in the Criteria tab looking like it is doing work. The check is to remove the filter and see whether the count changes.

The opposite filter was not run in this test, so this page does not state what "is not empty" returns on such a field. Only "is empty" was measured, and it matched everything.

Nothing errors, which is the whole problem

A report built on an unstored field is structurally correct. The field exists, the column header carries its label, the search runs to completion. Someone reviewing the search definition sees a valid definition. Someone reviewing the output sees blanks and assumes the data is missing upstream, which sends the investigation to the wrong place entirely.

Compare it with a field name that does not resolve at all in a Results formula. That case is loud in its own way: every row comes back populated with the literal string ERROR: Field Not Found, which is a different failure with its own page in this section. Wrong, but at least it is a string you can grep the export for. An unstored field gives you nothing to grep for.

How to tell if you are affected

Open the custom field record and look at Store Value before you go looking for a data problem. If a column is blank on every single row, including rows where a value certainly ought to exist, the field is the suspect and not the data.

Then check your saved searches for that field in Criteria. Any search filtering it with "is empty" is returning everything.

If you do want the field's value in search results, Store Value has to be on. What happens to records that already existed while it was off was not tested here, so treat backfill as an open question in your own account rather than something this page has established.

The other symptom, which is not this one

If the field is not in the picker at all, this is not your problem. That is the Inactive checkbox, and Store Value has nothing to do with it. Two different symptoms with two different causes, and conflating them is why the forum threads go in circles. The page on a custom field missing from the saved search field list covers that case, including the measurement that Store Value is not the cause of it.

Scope: one sandbox account on NetSuite 2026.1, Administrator role, a single purpose-made transaction body field of type Free-Form Text on a generic Transaction search, created for the test and deleted afterwards. The three usages were run as ad hoc searches. One field, one field type, one record type.