I’m afraid it is not the search causing the issue – the post bodies are empty after applying the do_shortcode or the the_content filters.
If you want, you can open a support ticket with the WPBakery page builder authors, they may know what the problem is, and how to resove it.
You can tell them, that the issue is:
Within an ajax request, applying the do_shortcode() function or the “the_content” filter returns an empty string, instead of the executed shortcodes, ex.:
$post = get_post($id); //$post->post_content contains the content with vc_ shortcodes
$content = do_shortcode($post->post_content); // Empty string
$content2 = apply_filters('the_content', $post->post_content); // Empty string..adding the:
WPBMap::addAllMappedShortcodes();
..before the get_post(..) call, does not resolve the issue, still empty strings are returned.
It appears, that the shortcodes are not yet registered at that point of execution. Is there a way to load them either via settings or programmatically? Thank you!