# Is The Search Broken?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [August 19, 2004, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528 "2004-08-19T10:59:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2004, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/1 "2004-08-19T10:59:33Z")
I’ve noticed this recently, but only now getting around to asking.
I normally keep track of the threads I’m involved in by doing a straight-forward search;
- Advanced Search
- Search By User Name : **Futile Gesture** , Find Posts By User, Exact Match
- At least 0 replies, from a week ago or newer, All Open Forums.
So everything is the defaults apart from the name. But lately it’s seems to be pretty random about the results. For example, currently it’s not showing ; [my post in this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=271868)[or this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=271826) , [or this.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=271478)
So is the search broken, or am I using it incorectly or something?
---
### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2004, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/2 "2004-08-19T11:30:20Z")
I’ve noticed that when I search for posts made by me, it doesn’t show threads where I first posted after the last daily downtime. Once the board comes up from the next downtime, there they are.
If I search using some other criterion, I find the thread immediately.
---
### Author:  [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/3 "2004-08-19T13:33:50Z")
Only about half of my posts are showing up. I openned a thread in IMHO and have posted to it about a half dozen times. It still doesn’t show up in a search.
---
### Author:  [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2004, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/4 "2004-08-19T14:55:51Z")
The Search function is definitely tweaked up. I have noticed inaccurate results on numerous occasions. Mostly vanity searches, but I’ve seen subject based searches turn up wrong as well.
---
### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/5 "2004-08-19T16:51:00Z")
It seems to me that with the new VB3 software, instead of the search index being updated every time a change is made, the entire search index is re-indexed during the daily downtime. What this means is that your searches will be out of order and missing the most recent elements.
---
### Author:  [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/6 "2004-08-19T17:34:07Z")
I don’t think it’s just _recent_ stuff, though. I have constant problems with posts I know exist, but don’t come up in a search, and it happens with all dates.
---
### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/7 "2004-08-21T16:00:25Z")
> [@blowero](#):
>
> I don’t think it’s just _recent_ stuff, though. I have constant problems with posts I know exist, but don’t come up in a search, and it happens with all dates.
Search has always been wonky. I’m not sure what we can do to make it work better, but I’ll try to tweak it a little and see if it helps.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
---
### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/8 "2004-08-22T03:08:48Z")
Just adding my voice about incomplete search results so that the mods can get something of a handle on the extent of the problem.
---
### Author:  [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2004, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/9 "2004-08-23T10:10:27Z")
It has definitely been acting screwy tonight.
---
### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/10 "2004-08-23T15:40:12Z")
Seems to me that the search parameters are sticky for some indeterminate period of time.
In other words, if **Futile Gesture** does that search first thing in the morning, then posts a few messages over the course of the day, and then does the same search at the end of the day, the listed threads will be exactly the same and in the same order as returned in the first search. Oddly, threads with new posts will be boldfaced, but they won’t be sorted by most recent post as they should be.
However, you can override this (sort of) by changing the date parameter. For **Futile Gesture** ’s search, if you set it to “one week” in the morning, and then “two weeks” in the afternoon, you get a freshly updated result list.
Sometimes this works overnight, and sometimes it doesn’t.
I don’t know if this is a bug in the software, or a feature (i.e., a search is temporarily saved to make results come up faster, even though on a fast-moving board like this they wind up being inaccurate).
---
### Author:  [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2004, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/11 "2004-08-23T19:51:02Z")
I have noticed this too. All this time I just thought I was going crazy 🙂
---
### Author:  [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-search-broken/260528/12 "2004-08-24T21:18:13Z")
Quirky Things I’ve noticed about search:
[ul][li]The old VB software used to pick-up screen names and keywords for text in a [quote][/li][/quoted]
section of a post - The new VB ignores it and treats it like a url link.On the former level, if someone quoted you, or what you typed, it showed up in a search.Sometimes the search holes run for a consecutive string of posts in a given block of time (a week / a month or months).[/ul]