Please get rid of search delay

[ragerdude]

I agree. The search delay is annoying. We should get rid of the delay, at least for paying members.

[Tamex]

The OP’s situation happens to me a lot. I don’t even search that often, but when I do, it’s a PITA. Five minutes between searches is unreasonable even when Search is working properly.

[Q.E.D]

@NineToTheSky

But that’s just it: it doesn’t support parameters, like Boolean things.

Actually, it does support Boolean operators, but I’m not sure as to what extent.

[Danalan]

I’m pretty sure we’ve driven away most of the people who are going to be driven away by the 5 minute search delay.

It’s clearly time to think of another petty annoyance to try and ruin the brand.

:rolleyes:

[fusoya]

Here’s a suggestion for the admins. Rather than having a 5 minute limit between searches, is it possible to have a limited number of searches that a member can do within a certain time period? Like provide 5 searches every hour? I have been burned more times than I can count by either screwing up my search terms, or hit the search button for the site to not only be totally unresponsive, but to start the 300 second clock anyway after I hit reload.

[clayton_e]

Searching user names in text (not by username) gets me. I’d like to see if I was quoted in an article in response to a discussion mid thread rather than waste my time and their resources to search for my username and click on the thread and search page by page until I get to the part where I had the discussion, then read it to see if I had been quoted back (sometimes a few pages have gone past since I’ve checked the thread too).

It used to not be this way. I remember way back that you searched your name as just regular text and it searched the threads (not the usernames of the people posting) and if you were quoted tadaa it came up as text that was found. Bingo. Click on link, go to quote, continue conversation.

Rather than dig my way through pages of threads to find the convo kinda died mid thread and I wasted my time reading stuff vaguely connected to the more specific topic I was talking about.

[Harmonious_Discord]

My search term had too many results. Wait 5 minutes. Screw this.

[NineToTheSky]

@Q.E.D

Actually, it does support Boolean operators, but I’m not sure as to what extent.

None that I’ve used. Does anyone know of any that work?

[NineToTheSky]

Can someone remind me why we have the five minute delay now. I believe it was because it overloaded the servers. If so, does that still apply?

[neutron_star]

@GuanoLad

Searching has always been blamed for the Server crashes and slowdowns. I maintain that this is almost certainly wrong, and it’s something else entirely

And what do you base this on? Intuition?

[GuanoLad]

@neutron_star

And what do you base this on? Intuition?

Observation, mostly. It seemed to me that whenever they had server problems, they did something to Search every time in an attempt to fix it, and usually it didn’t achieve anything. They are now so determined to blame Search for all their problems that they refuse to accept it might be anything else, perhaps something tangentially connected to Search (such as database indexing).

We’ve had a reasonably good run since the boards were upgraded to the latest version, but the Search has not been returned to normal at any point, so we can’t check to see if it those specific issues have been fixed due to the upgrade.

Presumably Jerry has tested this on a local version of the boards, but as he can’t induce a multiple-user experience, I don’t believe he can re-create the issues anyway.

I may very well be wrong, I am not a SysAdmin, though I have worked with many people who are, but it just seems like Search delays are not a viable answer to this particular issue, and are just wallpapering over cracks.

[Skywatcher]

I’d like to see the dely removed but only for instances of no results returned. Reverting to the three minute delay for all other searches would be nice, though.

@Hilarity_N.Suze

Really I think there’s a glitch here. In the above case, which is quite recent, I logged in, immediately performed the search–performed no other searches first–and got told I had to wait another 150 seconds. WTF? I hit enter, waited approximately 10 seconds (290…289…288) and then hit it again. And got 150?

Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

I did, but not recently. It’s probably been at least a months since I’ve seen the timer stuck like that.

[NineToTheSky]

Now that Ed Zotti has posted this

CL technical staff is now working on other important projects, one of which is a content management system that controls how the company’s publications distribute content to our print and online outlets. As a result, some annoying but non-mission-critical SDMB glitches will remain unattended for the time being.

I would say we can discuss searching as much as we like, but nothing’s going to change in the foreseeable future.

[Fenris]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

I don’t search a lot, but every time I do something like this happens. I decide to start a thread on something, but first I want to see if there’s already a similar thread. So, for instance, I type in “bulow” figuring that is the unique word (obviously I use a different unique word for every search), hit the enter, and nothing happens. Nothing…happens…at all. So I hit it again and get a message like: “You must wait another 189 seconds to do another search.” It seems completely arbitrary. If I have to wait 300 seconds between searches if you actually FOUND something, or if a search was actually performed.

Really I think there’s a glitch here. In the above case, which is quite recent, I logged in, immediately performed the search–performed no other searches first–and got told I had to wait another 150 seconds. WTF? I hit enter, waited approximately 10 seconds (290…289…288) and then hit it again. And got 150?

Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

Yeah, I’m getting this problem (no results) too.

[yojimbo]

IIRC this was a corrective action put in place when a couple of people searching at the same time brought the board down.

Since we’ve been upgraded etc. I no longer see the point in the delay still being in place. It makes searching a very annoying process. Searching is needed on this site due to the nature of some of the debates etc. and the need to cite your claims.

[BrainGlutton]

Worse yet, if you try a search and get “Database Error” (which I’ve been getting a lot in the past month), the system still counts that as a “search” and you have to wait another five minutes just to try again!

[Hi_Neighbor]

@BrainGlutton

Worse yet, if you try a search and get “Database Error” (which I’ve been getting a lot in the past month), the system still counts that as a “search” and you have to wait another five minutes just to try again!

I just tried a search and got the “Database Error.” After I refreshed the page, it said I had to wait 199 more seconds. Yes, thanks for knocking off 100 seconds, but really, this is extremely annoying.

[Lakai]

@Hi_Neighbor

I just tried a search and got the “Database Error.” After I refreshed the page, it said I had to wait 199 more seconds. Yes, thanks for knocking off 100 seconds, but really, this is extremely annoying.

It didn’t knock off 100 seconds. You spent that time waiting for the “Database Error” page to load.

[Cisco]

This is just another example of paying for a service that is inferior or to innumerable free ones. Don’t ask me why I pay here; I cannot figure it out myself.