Hello Walter.
I think you are right. Hitting exception in one of she shards
https://github.com/apache/solr/blob/main/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/handler/component/QueryComponent.java#L947
triggers partial results flag
https://github.com/apache/solr/blob/main/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/sol
When a replica returns an error, like a 503, does shards.tolerant=true give
partial results?
The ref guide says it does that when the shard is “unavailable”, but that
sounds like a down state rather than a temporary issue.
“In the event that one or more shards queried are unavailable,…”
https:/