Anyone had trouble with the board Search function?

[Lord Liaden]

On several occasions since the new board configuration went up, I've tried to call up a particular thread by inputting search words that I knew for a fact were on it (because I posted them there myself), only to not have the thread show up in the search results. Anybody else experienced this?

I didn't want to bother Ben or Dan without more supporting evidence that it's not just me doing something stupid. :o

[lemming]

Well, if you're doing something stupid, I'm doing it as well.

[L. Marcus]

That makes -- at least -- three of us. Can't find any recent threads, just those from last year.

[Simon]

Hrrrm...the search "weighting" is something that I can adjust, if necessary, but I haven't seen much of a problem with the current settings...

Can you guys give me some examples of threads that you're looking for and what you're entering to search for them?

To give an example of what I'm trying, if I enter "search function" into the search text field, this thread is at the top of the list.

Let me know what you're searching on and what you expect the results to be and we'll see what can be tweaked....

[Lord Liaden]

Hi, Dan, thanks for stopping in.

In my case it's been hard to figure out a pattern to what's happening. One example was when I wanted to look up something on the "Dr. Destroyer vs. Takofanes" thread. I input "Destroyer" and "Takofanes" both separately and together; in each case I got a number of threads with those words on them, but not that one. Some of those threads were earlier than the one I was looking for, others later. I tried changing the settings for which forum to search, dates, number of replies etc. and still couldn't get that thread.

On another occasion I went to edit a post I'd made about a character of mine, "Atlatl" - I found a few other threads with that word on it, but not mine. Curiously, when I tried the same search again a few hours later (late at night), the thread appeared.

Here's a third example: I wanted to look up a post by Mike "Susano" Surbrook, but couldn't get it with any keywords I was looking for. Yet when I searched for all posts by Susano by his username, there it was.

This sort of thing has happened to me four times since the new board software was installed. I'm frankly puzzled. :confused:

[lemming]

Ok, these searches looking for "Word Association Game" thread:

Word Association Game!!!!!
Word Association Game
Word Game

Ok, at first 1 & 2 didn't work and 3 did, but as soon as zornwil posted this thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5482) they both showed up with the 1&2 queries.

edit: Ok, that's not a new thread. What the hell? It seems to be inconsistant.

[Stephen Mann]

Two issues:

Ever since the new format went into effect, it's been abysmally slow on my dial-up.

Secondly, twice now the system has marked all new posts as read if I stayed in a thread too long. I've been ignoring the Catsuit thread up until now, but decided today to download some of the pictures. With the slow speed, it's taken two hours. When I got done, I found that the several pages of unread threads I had from before were reduced to two pages, all with posts that were new in the previous two hours I was downloading in.

[lemming]

Actually with the unread threads, I had the problem with the old boards as well.
The catsuit thread, that one is a slow one due to many posts and many attachments.

[Simon]

Hi, Dan, thanks for stopping in.

In my case it's been hard to figure out a pattern to what's happening. One example was when I wanted to look up something on the "Dr. Destroyer vs. Takofanes" thread. I input "Destroyer" and "Takofanes" both separately and together; in each case I got a number of threads with those words on them, but not that one. Some of those threads were earlier than the one I was looking for, others later. I tried changing the settings for which forum to search, dates, number of replies etc. and still couldn't get that thread.

On another occasion I went to edit a post I'd made about a character of mine, "Atlatl" - I found a few other threads with that word on it, but not mine. Curiously, when I tried the same search again a few hours later (late at night), the thread appeared.

Here's a third example: I wanted to look up a post by Mike "Susano" Surbrook, but couldn't get it with any keywords I was looking for. Yet when I searched for all posts by Susano by his username, there it was.

This sort of thing has happened to me four times since the new board software was installed. I'm frankly puzzled. :confused:
Let me do a bit of digging on this and see what I can come up with....I'll post a followup when I'm ready for you to test things out a bit. I'll also let you know what I change ;)

[Simon]

Two issues:

Ever since the new format went into effect, it's been abysmally slow on my dial-up.

Secondly, twice now the system has marked all new posts as read if I stayed in a thread too long. I've been ignoring the Catsuit thread up until now, but decided today to download some of the pictures. With the slow speed, it's taken two hours. When I got done, I found that the several pages of unread threads I had from before were reduced to two pages, all with posts that were new in the previous two hours I was downloading in. Two answers:

1. The response time of the server has actually improved. Be aware of the threads that you're opening....if you're opening a thread with a ton if images, then yes, it will take some time on a dial up....this is no different from before except that the site is telling your browser not to cache the pages (a good thing on a dynamic board like this). You would likely do well to change your browser if you're running IE.....IE is very slow at rendering things. Check the Company Questions board for a couple of threads on alternative browsers (mainly Firefox)

2. If you stay inactive for over a certain length of time (I believe it's 30 minutes, but may be wrong), your session times out. To do any different would cause the opposite problem - threads that you've read would persist in showing as new when you revisit the site.

[Simon]

I'm in the process of rebuilding the search indexes.....it's going to take a while, but hopefully it will take care of the problem (if not, I'll keep digging).

I'll post when the reindexing is done....it will likely be about 5 or 6 hours from now.

[Simon]

OK...I had to cancel the process....when they say that it's an "intensive" process, they're not kidding.

I'll run it at some point when Ben and I can schedule some downtime (or late night) and post here.

[Lord Liaden]

I appreciate your efforts, Dan, thank you. I'm sure we can hang on until you and Ben get the time to work on this.

Sounds like it's something significant, though. Were you able to identify the problem, or are you having to start from scratch just to make sure you have everything covered? :(

[Simon]

It doesn't look like anything serious. When we upgraded to the new boards, the data structure changed a bit. The upgrade process took care of migrating all of the data to the new structure, but there were various indices that still needed to be rebuilt. Among them the search indices.

The process of rebuilding the search indices is a long and intensive one.....one which I mistakenly thought I could sneak in during normal operation hours. When it started to slow down the entire server, I had to cancel it.

I'm planning on re-indexing the database this Sunday night.....hopefully during off-hours on the server.

[Simon]

OK...the search indexing is complete (ran last night).

Please try it again and see if it's any better.

One note: if you're not finding a specific post that you're looking for, please go through the suspect forum manually and ensure that the post actually does exist -- I'm finding some that have either been corrupted somehow during the switch, moved, changed in title, or deleted.

[Lord Liaden]

I'm sorry, Dan; I ran the same searches as before, with pretty much the same results. I even threw in a couple of new ones, which also didn't give all the expected responses. I checked to make sure that the desired threads were still on the forums.

If it helps, the missing items still show up in a "Threads Started By User" search. I also noticed that when I tried just searching for a keyword "In Titles Only," I got a couple of responses in which the keyword was in the body of the text, but not in the title. :confused:

[Simon]

OK....I'm really not seeing a problem here. I've gone back to the earliest post on, say, the Champions board and run a search on the title and it shows up fine....I've also run a search for the title of a recent post on the champions board and it seems to work fine.

Can you give me some specific examples of what you're searching for (the specific words that you're entering) and also post the thread(s) that you think should show up?

Having both the search keywords that you're using and the links to threads that you think should be showing up will help me tremendously.

Frex:

Search On: "Destroyer Takofanes"
Search Results Omitting: [link to post/thread]

[Lord Liaden]

Okay, Dan, here are a few examples I've had trouble with. The thread addresses were taken from the links on the individual forums. When I have more time I'll try to dig up other examples if you'd like. And let me add that I'm grateful for the time you're taking to straighten this out. I just wish there'd been more input from other posters to get a better idea of how widespread this glitch is. :(

Search On: "destroyer takofanes"

Search Omitting: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11399

Search On: "atlatl"

Search Omitting: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15541

Search On: "deacon blues"

Search Omitting: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14755

[Simon]

OK...I think we've finally got this fixed.

A while back, I rebuilt the search indices. No luck there, but I did notice that we were running into sporadic problems with the mysql database that drives the forums.

So yesterday I rebuilt the indices in the database itself and had it run through an error check/correction process. That didn't change the search results, but now, after running yet another re-build of the search indices, the problem seems to have cleared up.

What I think was happening was the database issues were preventing the search indices from being built properly which, in turn, prevented the searches from returning all available results.

So.....check it out now and let me know how it works for you.

Sorry for the long delay!

[Lord Liaden]

All the elusive threads are coming up from the Search just fine now - looks like you nailed it, oh Software Magus! :hail:

I really appreciate your work on this, Dan, thank you. All the ignorant posting masses have reason to thank you, too, though they may never know it. :winkgrin:

[Rage]

thank you Dan