You’ve just suggested the one thing that would make the problem worse. The search is timing out and/or running out of memory. That means the server is overloaded. Less delay in searches would only increase server load.
Has New Posts actually broken? While it is a search, it’s a very quick search. You’re just returning the last X items in the database. And I would think it would be further optimized and cached for quick results.
The few times I’ve run into search problems, it’s always been an issue with keywords and indexing.
All this said, I do wonder if the database needs to go through a defragmentation and repair. Searches do become slower over time if a database is not maintained.
Of course, that would actually mean taking the boards down for a bit. And our lone admin doesn’t have the time to fix smileys.
Do you actually know this or are you just assuming since it doesn’t make sense to me.
When I sit down at my computer for the first time in a few hours, come to this board, hit the New Posts button and it says that I have to wait 120 seconds (or some random amount of time), my assumption is that without the 120 second restriction in place, the search would have gone through just fine. My guess is that there’s a glitch with that restriction.
It’s not that I’m getting a time out or a blank screen or some other issue, it’s that the screen that pops up if I do two searches within two minutes is popping up when I’ve only done one.
It works fine for me. You have to know what you’re looking for though.
It’s no worse than the search function on any major store’s web page, where searching for, I dunno, “battery” will give you every single store item that mentions the word “battery” and not just a list of batteries. If you know what I mean.
I find it works pretty well if you’re searching by poster. Searching by thread title sucks though. (which is why I’ll use Google to search for thread titles.)
But then if you said ‘well that didn’t work, okay, I’ll search for Watch AND Battery’ it told you that you have to wait a few minutes before you tried again. Or worse, if it said that even if it was the first time you’d been to the site all day.
Yes, the Dope’s search is considerably worse than a major store’s search function.
And that works for New Posts how? Because that’s mostly how I use the search function.
I don’t know if it’s related, but I’ve had a problem the last couple of days where when I go to a thread, it tells me there are no new posts since the last time I read the thread, even though there actually are.
It’s an assumption based on the intermittent nature of the problem. That almost always means load problems. The specifics were based on other descriptions where they will get an error and only the next search will have a problem.
Your situation sounds more like vBulletin is getting two search requests when it should be getting only one. The intermittent nature still implies it’s load related, but I can’t guess at how.
I will note that I have still not run into the problem recently, but, then again, I’m never on during peak hours.
Ah, but yesterday, I knew exactly what I was looking for: The story about Scylla’s elephant-proof pool cover. Only I didn’t remember it was by Scylla and I didn’t remember the exact title. I typed in “elephant proof pool cover” and, bada bing, got what I was looking for and was able to go right to it.
Only there were too many distracting highlighted words on the page. After reading Scylla’s initial post, I decided to search with the actual title: “Elephant Proof” to read the responses. I just did the general search, not advanced. When I pushed the Search button, I waited a bit for something to happen but nothing did. I knew it was trying to load but it just couldn’t make it.
I decided to close out that window and see if I would have better luck in a new one, but then I encountered 120 second wall and decided to try again later. It sure would be nice if you could skip the wait time if your search fails but maybe that’s not possible. Is it? Also, I’m wondering if there’s a way to turn off the highlighting once you’ve found what you’re looking for? Maybe I didn’t notice that you can.
TubaDiva, I’ll try using Google in the future. Thanks for mentioning it. And thanks to you and all the other long-suffering mods on these boards who do so much to make this one of the best places to hang out on the internet.
The highlighted words always annoy me. To get rid of them just delete everything in the URL after the ampersand. So “&highlight=elephant…” and it’ll reload the page normally. That’s the first thing if I search for something OR if someone links to a thread that they searched for and didn’t already delete that part of the URL.
Ok…so wouldn’t it follow, from your logic, that if they removed the two minute search restriction that even if the board received two requests, I would still get my results and could go on my marry way without having to wait two minutes for no reason?
What about when I do one search and get a warning telling me I have to wait 121 seconds? Again, I have no idea what’s causing that error, but I’d be willing to bet if they got rid of the search restriction, that would go away as well.
Yeah, a double-click will do that.
A double click will do that, but it’s been discussed in this thread and at least one other that that’s not what’s happening here.
If that’s what’s going on, then my mouse at work AND at home are broken because I’m typically pretty careful not to double click on the New Posts button and a lot of other people are having the same problem as me.
Of course it isn’t a double click problem. It’s some search function snafu, and it is really annoying because the “new post” link is considered a search, so you end up being told to wait 120 seconds, which nobody likes.
Been happening here a couple of week. Usually 117 seconds.
And I only use New Posts to scan the board.
Thanks, Joey! You’re a life-saver. Or an eyeball-saver or maybe a brain-saver. At any rate, you’re all right!
FTR, I’ve been using the New Posts feature since I read about it in this thread and haven’t had any problem with that. Just the Search feature.
Seems like Tubadiva’s response addresses the wrong question.
Yes, vB search engine isn’t stellar. You have to be selective to find what you want. And yes, that can lead to delays if your first search criteria aren’t restrictive or are too restrictive or are just misremembered. All of those problems happen.
But the current complaint is with regards to the search feature timing issue that has been pointed out in the Board Problems thread. You try to search and the first click gives you the error message. This has been proposed as an error in synching the servers, with internal clocks. But that’s one guess in that thread based on people who aren’t admins not able to actually check the code or anything.
It’s a shame we don’t have an admin who we actually have access to.
just reporting the search function has been working very well the last few days
Actually, I had it break on me just today. WIth the “you have to wait to search” for the first time I accessed the page in a few hours.
It’s incredibly frustrating.