Search problems

Xotli · #1 January 16th, 2007, 09:45 PM

Okay, so something is definitely wrong with search. Try a few simple ones yourself: a search for "height", for instance, yields only two pages ... a search for "search" yields only one(!). Obviously that's not right, on either count. Also note that apparently nothing older than the past few months shows up.

I suspect that something is up with the indexes. Perhaps they just need to be rebuilt? IAE, at the very least we should all be aware of this issue. No point in telling the noobs they should be using the search to find old threads when it ain't working.

As always, if there's anything I can do to help, let me know, but it sounds like Ketch has things under control lately.

Cavalier · #2 January 17th, 2007, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xotli

Okay, so something is definitely wrong with search. Try a few simple ones yourself: a search for "height", for instance, yields only two pages ... a search for "search" yields only one(!). Obviously that's not right, on either count. Also note that apparently nothing older than the past few months shows up.

I suspect that something is up with the indexes. Perhaps they just need to be rebuilt? IAE, at the very least we should all be aware of this issue. No point in telling the noobs they should be using the search to find old threads when it ain't working.

As always, if there's anything I can do to help, let me know, but it sounds like Ketch has things under control lately.

Yes this has really put a damper on me being able to say "search is your friend", because right now it isn't

From what I have been able to determine, the searches are only yielding results since the DB rebuild.

Xotli · #3 January 18th, 2007, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavalier

From what I have been able to determine, the searches are only yielding results since the DB rebuild.

Yeah, that's my suspicion as well. Hopefully a simple rebuild of the indices will fix it.

Guys? any chance someone can do that? Again, if there's anything I can do to help facilitate, just let me know and I'll be happy to pitch in.

Ketch · #4 January 18th, 2007, 10:27 AM

You are mostly correct...
DB wasn't rebuilt, if it was then there would be no posts period.
However the search word list which I said takes up a lot of space was killed on the 12th.

Any posts before the 12th will not be searched, so unfortunately, all you people who defer newbies to searches will have to stop :P

Cavalier · #5 January 18th, 2007, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ketch

You are mostly correct...
DB wasn't rebuilt, if it was then there would be no posts period.
However the search word list which I said takes up a lot of space was killed on the 12th.

Any posts before the 12th will not be searched, so unfortunately, all you people who defer newbies to searches will have to stop :P

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is BAD, very, very, bad!

I understand it from a size perspective, but it cuts the ability to effectively use the site by an order of degrees. Being unable to search old posts means that valuable information is essentially lost.

just my 2¢

Ketch · #6 January 18th, 2007, 11:45 AM

I agree,
I hope I didn't convince them to do it. I made a comment before

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ketch

Yes that affects DB size extrodinarily.
A big thing phpbb does though is categorizes every single word every used in a post into the DB for searching. Besides posts that is the next largest table usually.

I was answering someone's question, but I wasn't advising it haha.
Guess I should make that distinction.
Also, there is no way of getting it back (unless there is a backup, however, even that would be hard to do, because it would need ot be merged with the past weeks stuff)

Kepler · #7 January 18th, 2007, 12:07 PM

If we post to old threads would that make the rest of that thread searchable or would just the new posts in the thread be searchable?

Uprising · #8 January 18th, 2007, 12:18 PM

People will have to grind it out the old fashioned way. Thread by thread, page by page.

Ketch · #9 January 18th, 2007, 12:40 PM

the other thing is...
normally you could google search a site... using the
"site: www.heroscapers.com search words"
thing.
But we banned google from the site... haha

InfinityMax · #10 January 18th, 2007, 12:53 PM

HAHA! Man, that's priceless! Google is banned!

I totally understand why, though. Their bots were killing the bandwidth.

It does help a little to know what happened, though. I was wondering why a thread I knew dang well was still around would not pull up in Search.

One thing you can try, if you have the patience and know who posted what you're looking for, is to hit that person's profile and check 'view all posts by this person.' That's how I found the thread I wanted - I checked my own profile and looked through my 103 pages of post summaries.

Cavalier · #11 January 18th, 2007, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfinityMax

HAHA! Man, that's priceless! Google is banned!

I totally understand why, though. Their bots were killing the bandwidth.

It does help a little to know what happened, though. I was wondering why a thread I knew dang well was still around would not pull up in Search.

One thing you can try, if you have the patience and know who posted what you're looking for, is to hit that person's profile and check 'view all posts by this person.' That's how I found the thread I wanted - I checked my own profile and looked through my 103 pages of post summaries.

I have in fact used that technique this week...almost as painful as slicing your wrists and doing push ups is saltwater...but not as bad as trying to find something manually.

Xotli · #12 January 18th, 2007, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavalier

I understand it from a size perspective, but it cuts the ability to effectively use the site by an order of degrees. Being unable to search old posts means that valuable information is essentially lost.

I think you understate the issue, personally. Not being able to search the site basically means the site is useless to quite a few people. Sure, we can still post, but I think that, just like any online community, there are always a good deal more reading than posting, and most of those readers are here looking for information.

That they, now, can't find.

Which makes the site useless, at least for them.

Also, I can't agree that there's no way of getting it back. If the posts still exist, then the search indices can be recreated (and if the posts don't still exist, then I suppose the entire point is moot, but IMax's comment seems to indicate that happily that's not the case). I mean, it may not be easy perhaps, but it must be possible. Again, I fully volunteer my time and effort to help out if necessary. I just hate to see the site crippled in this way.

Plus I have some stuff I wanna search for.