diff --git a/src/applications/conpherence/query/ConpherenceFulltextQuery.php b/src/applications/conpherence/query/ConpherenceFulltextQuery.php
--- a/src/applications/conpherence/query/ConpherenceFulltextQuery.php
+++ b/src/applications/conpherence/query/ConpherenceFulltextQuery.php
@@ -56,9 +56,9 @@
     }
 
     if (strlen($this->fulltext)) {
-      $compiled_query = PhabricatorSearchDocument::newQueryCompiler()
-        ->setQuery($this->fulltext)
-        ->compileQuery();
+      $compiler = PhabricatorSearchDocument::newQueryCompiler();
+      $tokens = $compiler->newTokens($this->fulltext);
+      $compiled_query = $compiler->compileQuery($tokens);
 
       $where[] = qsprintf(
         $conn_r,
diff --git a/src/applications/search/fulltextstorage/PhabricatorMySQLFulltextStorageEngine.php b/src/applications/search/fulltextstorage/PhabricatorMySQLFulltextStorageEngine.php
--- a/src/applications/search/fulltextstorage/PhabricatorMySQLFulltextStorageEngine.php
+++ b/src/applications/search/fulltextstorage/PhabricatorMySQLFulltextStorageEngine.php
@@ -398,12 +398,13 @@
     $stemmer = new PhutilSearchStemmer();
 
     $compiler = PhabricatorSearchDocument::newQueryCompiler()
-      ->setQuery($raw_query)
       ->setStemmer($stemmer);
 
+    $tokens = $compiler->newTokens($raw_query);
+
     $queries = array();
-    $queries[] = $compiler->compileLiteralQuery();
-    $queries[] = $compiler->compileStemmedQuery();
+    $queries[] = $compiler->compileLiteralQuery($tokens);
+    $queries[] = $compiler->compileStemmedQuery($tokens);
 
     return implode(' ', array_filter($queries));
   }
diff --git a/src/infrastructure/cluster/search/PhabricatorSearchService.php b/src/infrastructure/cluster/search/PhabricatorSearchService.php
--- a/src/infrastructure/cluster/search/PhabricatorSearchService.php
+++ b/src/infrastructure/cluster/search/PhabricatorSearchService.php
@@ -253,6 +253,10 @@
         $res = $engine->executeSearch($query);
         // return immediately if we get results
         return $res;
+      } catch (PhutilSearchQueryCompilerSyntaxException $ex) {
+        // If there's a query compilation error, return it directly to the
+        // user: they issued a query with bad syntax.
+        throw $ex;
       } catch (Exception $ex) {
         $exceptions[] = $ex;
       }