Indeed, search is currently broken.

Will seats be released? If people do not show up for the flight or cancel for various reasons, seats will be available, and other more desirable seats may be available at some point if statusholders with pending upgrade requests are accommodated.

When may this occur? Nobody I know can predict that (though there have been rumors about HNL for some time now ). Though upgrades for statusholders and full coach ticket holders may become available at 100, 72 and 24 hours out, they often do not get assigned at these exact times.

Once the flight goes to airport control, it may not be possible to select alternate seats online, however. In that case, early airport arrival and the kiosk, TA, AC etc. may be your friends.