Search'in not working?!

toil

Is it just me? - the search feature is not working...?

toil

ecksor

Some details such as what you mean by "not working", what you did, what you expected to happen and what happened would help.

toil

Firefox:
Click search, enter Eircom - Says connecting to boards.ie - then done.
Does nothing.

IE:
Click search, enter Eircom - 'Comes back with - This page cannot be displayed'....


toil

ecksor

eircom is a popular topic. It's probably trying to process too many search results.

ecksor

Is there any particular thread or post or subject regarding eircom that you're searching for?

daveg

I'm having a simular problem - Go to search page - enter search - get a "page cannot be found" error (Cannot find server or DNS Error)

seamus

I get the same with 'eircom'. Works for other searches. Interesting.

ecksor

If you have a particular search in mind then it may be possible to work out some strategies for narrowing the search parameters.

seamus

I know that it's probably not a top priority, and the very fact that it does this shows that the search will yield far too many results to be of any use, but..eh...should it not be flagged as an "issue" at least?

ecksor

It's a problem and I'm open to suggestions. My take on it is here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2422844&postcount=7

However, my conclusions after going through the problem were that I would have designed the search system slightly differently knowing what I know now if I was a vbulletin developer, which isn't a terribly practical direction towards an answer right now.

Anyway, if something is so unspecific that it's not going to be a useful search term, then the search needs to be changed anyway. I would just prefer that it failed in a less crap manner.

poneill

toil wrote:

Is it just me? - the search feature is not working...?

Search for Sinn = works
Search for Fein = works
Search for Féin = works
Search for Sinn AND Fein = works
Search for Sinn AND Féin = works

So whats the problem ?

And if it ain't broke why fix it ?

ecksor

Have you some particular reason to think that those are particularly common terms or is this some sort of silly joke?

Khannie

Suggestion:

www.google.ie

then type in the search bar:

site:www.boards.ie <insert_search_term_here>

Works a charm except for very recent posts (boards is catalogued by google). The comp forum requires short word searching a lot (for acronyms) and this is really the only way to do it.

Stabshauptmann

i wanted to link to a previous post of mine and tried searching (cos I forgot the thread)
I typed in a sentence word for word but got one of those no server pages
I presume my search was too long, shortened it and it worked.
But Im curious, why did I get that generic no server page rather than some boards fault page telling me what Id done wrong (and perhaps a funny/sarcastic quip)

Stabshauptmann

btw, I was reminded while typing that last post of an error page I got one time when trying to find the "gathering" page. I'd spelt the address wrong and been linked somewhere with some remark I can no longer remember.
I tried just there to repeat the mistake, find the page and reread the remark but I just get the normal "page not found" page.
Does that page still exist / did it ever...
What do pple do to get directed there

damien

poneill wrote:

So whats the problem ?

And if it ain't broke why fix it ?

You couldn't contribute a few quid to the Boards.ie fund so someone can work on search fulltime could you ?

ecksor

Necromancer wrote:

But Im curious, why did I get that generic no server page rather than some boards fault page telling me what Id done wrong (and perhaps a funny/sarcastic quip)

If the search process goes on too long, then you end up with the response taking too long and it appears as if the server isn't responding. As I say, I'd prefer if it failed in a non-crap manner.

toil

So, whats the story?
I dont think any search term works for me...is it just me?
Using Firefox....search for SMART - nothing happens, page starts loading and then it just shows the same page i had been on.....just to let people know...

toil

ecksor

Ok, but "SMART" is also a very common word found in posts. Having said that, a search for SMART worked fine for me.

Have you tried restricting to certain time periods and/or certain forums?

dudara

I'm having problems searching as well at the moment. I'm using Firefox and I've twice tried to search for two different topics. I just get a white page saying search failed, zero sized string.

any ideas?

ecksor

Yep, tell us what you searched for.

dudara

One query was "form fusion" and the other was "windows key". I've attached a screenshotof the page I get.

seamus

Yeah, I'm getting
64 - Host not available
for both of those searches. FF 1.0.1, XP SP2.