I tried to search the SDMB from my work computer, and then at home. At work, I kept getting an ISP error screen - hadn’t happened that way before more than once or twice; trying again in a few minutes always worked, but not this time. At home, I kept getting an all-white screen and this in the URL box at the top: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/search.php?do=process. But then nothing would happen.
Anyone else having problems with search?
Yes, for the past two weeks.
Huh. First time it’s happened to me in a loooong time.
This resembles what I’ve been getting lately at a certain credit card web site when I try to log in to pay my credit card. I guess they don’t want my money all that badly.
Anyway, I’ve been paying that card by simply writing a paper check and mailing it to them via U. S. Snail Mail, kinda like they did in the days of Christopher Columbus. That technology still seems to work, mostly.
I thought the board search function had always sucked. I have been getting a whole lot more board hangs, timeouts, and errors in the last few weeks than I am used to experiencing, though, and such things will doubtless affect the search function too.
Yep, for a couple of weeks things have been off. When I choose “new posts” I’m getting the “you must wait x seconds” where “x” is a random number that has nothing to do with anything I’ve done.
Same here.
There is always Google, we are told. A bit like going to the library and being told that the collection search doesn’t work too well, but there’s an obsessive guy across the street with a shoe box full of index cards who might be able to help.
The built in vBulletin search has always been inadequate to the challenge of everyday searching. It actually used to be much worse, not that it’s any great shakes now.
It’s never been good and there’s no fix for it that I know of other than using Google instead.
If the guy across the street is responsive, his index is comprehensive, and he’s not too far away, I don’t see a problem.
It’s one big Internet. The SDMB isn’t a delicate isolated snowflake. Like it or not, Google is everywhere, and it’s clearly a good-enough workaround. Considering that the alternative seems to be a series of fixes to the SDMB’s technical baseline that we can safely assume are beyond the realm of reality, given current management’s apparent priorities.*
*I say this as a persistent lurker, not with any authority or inside knowledge.
He has the shoebox on his lap and there’s a hole in the bottom, so you see his dick when you look into the box. Plus he files the Mc’s all wrong.
I hate that guy!
It’s been working great for me for months now, but is now on the fritz again. Grrrr.
Wow, that’s hardly a fair description of Google. The thing is, search is hard. It’s just that Google are just so mindbogglingly amazing at it that they make it look effortless, and now everyone else looks like a moron.
That obsessive guy with the shoe box just happens to be Einstein, Mozart and Sherlock Holmes rolled into one.
You forgot Pythagoras, Euclid, Homer, Mendeleev and Tori Spelling.
Could be Jeffrey Dahmer, too…
(Search is working fine for me these days, BTW).
I reported this back in November…