diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 16e57e087..75d070e10 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ registration or heartbeat to Clowder that will restrict use of that extractor to
 ## Fixed
 - Updated lastModifiesDate when updating file or metadata to a dataset, added lastModified to UI  [386](https://github.com/clowder-framework/clowder/issues/386)
 - Disabled button while create dataset ajax call is still going on [#311](https://github.com/clowder-framework/clowder/issues/311)
+- Fixed bug where complex JSON metadata objects using arrays were not being indexed properly for search.
 
 
 ## 1.21.0 - 2022-08-23
diff --git a/app/services/ElasticsearchPlugin.scala b/app/services/ElasticsearchPlugin.scala
index 25b7c8d9d..e6e5e6ce9 100644
--- a/app/services/ElasticsearchPlugin.scala
+++ b/app/services/ElasticsearchPlugin.scala
@@ -527,7 +527,7 @@ class ElasticsearchPlugin(application: Application) extends Plugin {
                 case jv: JsArray => {
                   builder.startArray(clean_k)
                   jv.value.foreach(subv => {
-                    builder.value(subv.toString.replace("\"",""))
+                    builder.value(convertJsObjectToBuilder(builder, subv.asInstanceOf[JsObject]))
                   })
                   builder.endArray()
                 }
@@ -598,11 +598,9 @@ class ElasticsearchPlugin(application: Application) extends Plugin {
           // Elasticsearch 2 does not allow periods in field names
           builder.startArray(k.toString.replace(".", "_"))
           v.value.foreach(jv => {
-            // Try to interpret numeric value from each String if possible
-            parseDouble(jv.toString) match {
-              case Some(d) => builder.value(d)
-              case None => builder.value(jv)
-            }
+            builder.startObject()
+            convertJsObjectToBuilder(builder, jv.asInstanceOf[JsObject])
+            builder.endObject()
           })
           builder.endArray()
         }