Why does the spotlight window randomly close after typing a few specific characters?

Just to weed out unhelpful comments about user error, I will start by saying, I have used macs my entire life and so I am very aware of the way they operate, including spotlight search, which I have been using for years.

My macs software is completely up to date at 10.12.6 and this is a new problem that started today. It is a mac book pro from mid 2015 with all the best internal options. Solid state drive. I have tried restarting, relaunching finder, just leaving the computer off for a while. Nothing has solved the issue. I am not accidentally bumping or clicking any keys and nothing else has to be open on my computer for this to happen.

I have noticed it happens when typing specific letters and after a certain number of letters has been typed. Ive been trying to spotlight search "photoshop" but as soon as i type a "p" "i" or "m" the window spontaneously disappears. I can use those letters as long as they aren't the first letter in the search. for example, I can search "apple" I cannot however type "pear." I can type "dig" but not "iPhone."

The "i" only seems to make it glitch if the "p" or "m" glitch happened the try before.

One thing that is not constant is the amount of letters I can use. in the last 10 tries it disappeared after 4-6 letters 3 times but the rest of the tries I could type as many as I wanted as long as i didn't start with a "p" or "m"

When the glitch happens the spotlight icon in the menubar disappears for a half a second and comes back. This does not happen when pressing "esc" or clicking off.

I've seen this question posted many times on apple support pages with no solution other than the people saying "user error". If anyone has a solution other than like reinstalling the same software that caused this problem, which is what was recommended to the other people with this problem and didn't solve it, I would really appreciate it. If not, then this problem needs to be fixed immediately. It makes spotlight practically unusable.