# Search keeps breaking on me

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [February 24, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210 "2009-02-24T16:28:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210/1 "2009-02-24T16:28:14Z")

</div>

I’ve tried 3 times at different points to search for “world war zombie” and each time have ended up with this error:

**Fatal error** : Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 9 bytes) in **/home/straightdope/boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/search.php** on line **1007**

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210/2 "2009-02-24T17:07:04Z")

</div>

Yeah, there’s several threads about this already, but of course you likely won’t be able to search for them, since the search feature is shit. IIRC, they are evaluating 3rd party search software, and of course there’s no estimate when that might be available.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210/3 "2009-02-24T17:33:26Z")

</div>

> [@Darth\_Sensitive](#):
>
> I’ve tried 3 times at different points to search for “world war zombie” and each time have ended up with this error…

As **Revtim** says, there are several threads commenting on such errors but [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=489635) specifically highlights the difficulties encountered when including ‘world’ in the search terms.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210/4 "2009-02-24T18:04:08Z")

</div>

Hmmm.

At least I tracked down what I was looking for “zombie brooks”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210/5 "2009-02-24T20:32:40Z")

</div>

It sure would be nice if that error didn’t count against you as a result for the 300 second rule! Aaiiee!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-keeps-breaking-on-me/487210/6 "2009-02-24T20:59:12Z")

</div>

> [@Driver8](#):
>
> It sure would be nice if that error didn’t count against you as a result for the 300 second rule! Aaiiee!

Well, it’s a bug, they may not have control over what happens in that situation.

What annoys me is that now if your search completes successfully, but did not come up with any results, you have to wait the 5 minutes before making a new corrected search. It didn’t used to do that, and it’s likely just a setting somewhere to change.