MongoDB/Mongoose text search not returning results despite matching documents in database

Here’s a description of the problem you can use for your Stack Overflow post:
I’m developing a Node.js application using Express and Mongoose to interact with a MongoDB database. I’m trying to implement a search functionality for products, but I’m encountering an issue where my search query is not returning any results, even though I know there are matching documents in the database.
Here’s my current setup:

I have a Product model with fields including ‘title’ and ‘description’.
I’m using a GET route to search products based on a ‘keyword’ query parameter.
My search logic uses a regex to match the keyword in either the title or description fields.

Here’s the relevant part of my code:

`if (req.query.keyword) {
  const query = {};
  query.$or = [
    { title: { $regex: req.query.keyword, $options: "i" } },
    { description: { $regex: req.query.keyword, $options: "i" } },
  ];
  mongooseQuery = mongooseQuery.find(query);
}

const products = await mongooseQuery;`

When I make a request to /api/v1/products?keyword=SanDisk, I get the following console output:

Query: {"keyword":"SanDisk"}
Mongoose Query: {
  "keyword": "SanDisk",     
  "$or": [
    {
      "title": {
        "$regex": "SanDisk",
        "$options": "i"     
      }
    },
    {
      "description": {      
        "$regex": "SanDisk",
        "$options": "i"     
      }
    }
  ]
}
Results: 0

I’ve confirmed that there are products in the database with “SanDisk” in the title or description. However, the search consistently returns 0 results.
I’ve tried several debugging steps, including:

Logging the total number of products in the database
Attempting simpler queries
Checking the structure of sample documents

Despite these efforts, I haven’t been able to identify why the search is not working as expected. Any insights or suggestions on how to troubleshoot this issue would be greatly appreciated.