sonar-deep-research (async) returns empty citations/search_results despite num_search_queries=10 — full content, no source attribution (2026-06-13)

Bug Reports
1

Bug type: Missing, invalid, or stale citations/search results
Affected API area: Sonar API (sonar-deep-research, async)

Summary
On the async deep-research endpoint (POST /async/chat/completions), sonar-deep-research returns COMPLETED jobs with a fully populated message.content (10k+ word reports) but EMPTY citations and search_results arrays — despite usage.num_search_queries = 10, confirming searches actually ran. This is the inverse of the current sonar-reasoning-pro thread (empty content / populated citations) and appears related to thread #5074 (empty search_results, 2026-05-01) and the Mar 26 “sonar-deep-research intermittently fails to activate web search” report.

Expected behavior
citations / search_results populated with the sources from the searches that ran (num_search_queries=10), as in the documented sonar-deep-research response shape.

Actual behavior

  • status: COMPLETED, no error_message
  • response.usage.num_search_queries: 10 (searches ran)
  • response.usage.citation_tokens: null (no citation tokens billed)
  • response.citations: (empty array, present)
  • response.search_results: (empty array, present)
  • message.content: fully populated, 10k+ words

So searches execute but results never attach to citations/search_results. Reproduces on two different jobs, both evergreen and current-events queries.

Request details

  • Endpoint: https://api.perplexity.ai/async/chat/completions
  • Model: sonar-deep-research
  • Date/time: 2026-06-13, ~18:15-18:22 UTC
  • Job IDs: b510d375-dd1a-4fc7-aeea-70dcf59ea699, ec8a5f71-ce6c-4841-977a-7c10e848d32e
  • Consistent: yes, both jobs identical symptom

Question
Is this the same root cause as #5074 / the current sonar-reasoning-pro thread, and will the fix be tracked here or there? Requesting notification when resolved.

2

Hey Yeygermeister, unfortunately I was unable to reproduce this, are you still getting the empty citations? If so feel free to share a sample request, make sure to remove any sensitive data before doing so .

If you prefer to write directly into support, my colleagues over at api@perplexity.ai will be able to assist you as well!