# Hybrid Search: max-vector-distance not filtering results as expected
**URL:** https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 12, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288 "2025-02-12T19:05:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pc10](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/pc10)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/1 "2025-02-12T19:05:14Z")
### Description
I am using hybrid search with `max-vector-distance` to limit the vector similarity contributions in my search results. However, when I inspect the results using `explain_score`, I notice that the vector similarity scores still exceed the `max-vector-distance` threshold.
This behavior is unexpected, as I assumed setting `max-vector-distance` would filter out any results beyond the specified threshold. The scores seem inconsistent with my expectations for hybrid search.
Am I misunderstanding how `max-vector-distance` is applied in hybrid search?
### Server Setup Information
- Weaviate Server Version: semitechnologies/weaviate:1.26.1
- Deployment Method: k8s
- Multi Node? Number of Running Nodes: 1
- Client Language and Version: 4.8.0
- Multitenancy?: No
### Any additional Information
Here is the example search result.
`Max Vector Distance: 0.3`
`Hybrid Search results: Object(uuid=_WeaviateUUIDInt('02acc4a4-d186-51bd-8b17-a25470a6a053'), metadata=MetadataReturn(creation_time=None, last_update_time=None, distance=None, certainty=None, score=0.6219874620437622, explain_score='\nHybrid (Result Set keyword,bm25) Document 02acc4a4-d186-51bd-8b17-a25470a6a053: original score 7.7068768, normalized score: 0.343784 - \nHybrid (Result Set vector,hybridVector) Document 02acc4a4-d186-51bd-8b17-a25470a6a053: **original score 0.5154053** , normalized score: 0.27820346', is_consistent=None, rerank_score=-10.181857109069824)`
Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
---
### Author:  [@DudaNogueira](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/DudaNogueira)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2025, 10:28pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/2 "2025-02-12T22:28:42Z")
> [@pc10](#):
>
> 1.26.1
Hi @pc10 !!
Can you make sure this also happens on latest version?
This is what I got running on 1.28.4:
```python
import weaviate
from weaviate import classes as wvc
headers = {
"X-Openai-Api-Key": os.environ.get("OPENAI_APIKEY"),
}
client = weaviate.connect_to_local(
headers=headers
)
print(f"Client: {weaviate. __version__ }, Server: {client.get_meta().get('version')}")
# Client: 4.10.4, Server: 1.28.4
client.collections.delete("Test")
client.collections.create(
name="Test",
vectorizer_config=[
wvc.config.Configure.NamedVectors.text2vec_openai(
name="default"
),
],
)
collection = client.collections.get("Test")
collection.data.insert({"text": "Something about Brazil", })
collection.data.insert({"text": "Something about Pelé, best soccer player", })
collection.data.insert({"text": "Something about indian food", })
```
Now, I performed a search and printed all the infos:
```python
for o in collection.query.hybrid(
query="futebol",
#max_vector_distance=0.4,
return_metadata=wvc.query.MetadataQuery(score=True, explain_score=True, distance=True)
).objects:
print("#"*10)
print(o.properties)
print(o.metadata.distance, o.metadata.score, o.metadata.explain_score)
```
and got this as output:
```auto
##########
{'text': 'Something about Pelé, best soccer player'}
None 0.699999988079071
Hybrid (Result Set vector,hybridVector) Document 5f8f8671-27cb-407b-81cf-ae4560fc0186: original score 0.35348773, normalized score: 0.7
##########
{'text': 'Something about Brazil'}
None 0.46075865626335144
Hybrid (Result Set vector,hybridVector) Document d194fb42-1bb5-414c-8e72-02fccb48039d: original score 0.23937017, normalized score: 0.46075866
##########
{'text': 'Something about indian food'}
None 0.0
Hybrid (Result Set vector,hybridVector) Document 0e1fba05-f908-4a3c-9ce2-711ecd4ed062: original score 0.019589365, normalized score: 0
```
Now, using `max_vector_distance` in a way to better understand it 😉
Those are the distances we will filter out:
1. score 0.35348773
2. score 0.23937017
3. score 0.019589365
```python
for o in collection.query.hybrid(
query="futebol",
max_vector_distance=1-0.020,
return_metadata=wvc.query.MetadataQuery(score=True, explain_score=True, distance=True)
).objects:
print("#"*10)
print(o.properties)
print(o.metadata.distance, o.metadata.score, o.metadata.explain_score)
```
and this was the output:
```python
##########
{'text': 'Something about Pelé, best soccer player'}
None 0.699999988079071
Hybrid (Result Set vector,hybridVector) Document aa55119a-6d83-4161-85b6-217861031f0f: original score 0.35347474, normalized score: 0.7
##########
{'text': 'Something about Brazil'}
None 0.0
Hybrid (Result Set vector,hybridVector) Document 2091b86c-e835-4da7-922f-24bcdd63c70c: original score 0.23937523, normalized score: 0
```
I believe this is filtering against the scored vector distance (as it is in a hybrid search).
So whenever that value is closer to 1, it is closer to the query, instead of the other way around: bigger the value bigger the distance.
Let me know if this helps!
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@pc10](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/pc10)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2025, 3:50pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/3 "2025-02-14T15:50:13Z")
> [@DudaNogueira](#):
>
> ```auto
> max_vector_distance=1-0.020,
>
> ```
Thank you for the quick response! I haven’t seen any filtering of results in **weaviate 1.26.1** , regardless of the `max-vector-distance` value I set. I will try this again on the upgraded version. Since we are using `weaviate-vectorstore` in production, I’ll need to check for potential regressions before upgrading.
I’d also like to clarify the behavior of `max-vector-distance`. My understanding is that documents with a **vector distance greater than `max-vector-distance`** **should** be excluded. However, is the intuition here that the score returned from hybrid search represents **similarity** rather than actual **distance**?
If that’s the case, then the following values are similarity scores, and setting `max_vector_distance = 0.98` filters out the `0.0195` document because its **distance** is higher:
- **0.3534**
- **0.2393**
- **0.0195**
Is there a way to explicitly display the **distance values** in the search results to compare them directly with `max-vector-distance` for a more apples-to-apples comparison?
Thank you !
---
### Author:  [@DudaNogueira](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/DudaNogueira)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/4 "2025-02-14T18:30:16Z")
Hi!
There isn’t, AFAIK.
Also, the vector distance may vary for different query and objects, so you couldn’t define a threshold solely on vector distance.
So when you do a hybrid search, the distance calculated for the vector part of the search will be normalized in order to be fused. And that normalized vector distance is the one you can filter out with max-vector-distance.
Let me know if that helps!
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@Dirk](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/Dirk)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2025, 8:30am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/5 "2025-02-17T08:30:06Z")
Hi,
IIRC there was a bug in the first release of the max vector distance that could cause some objects to be included even if their vector distance was larger than the threshold.
> [@pc10](#):
>
> I’d also like to clarify the behavior of `max-vector-distance`. My understanding is that documents with a **vector distance greater than `max-vector-distance`** **should** be excluded.
yes, this is correct.
> So when you do a hybrid search, the distance calculated for the vector part of the search will be normalized in order to be fused. And that normalized vector distance is the one you can filter out with max-vector-distance.
The filtering is happening _before_ the normalization+fusion
---
### Author:  [@pc10](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/pc10)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/6 "2025-02-18T18:58:34Z")
Thank you. Do we know what stable-version has this bug fixed/resolved?
---
### Author:  [@Dirk](https://forum.weaviate.io/u/Dirk)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2025, 6:35am UTC](https://forum.weaviate.io/t/hybrid-search-max-vector-distance-not-filtering-results-as-expected/10288/7 "2025-02-19T06:35:28Z")
IIRC correctly one of the early 1.26.X releases. If I were you I would update to the lastest 1.26 point release