[FORUM BUG] Search doesn't work properly - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: b_force
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2017, 02:02:12 pm
content: I wanted to use the search to find some topics that has been flooded away by the huge pile of new messages.This topic was started in August, about one or two weeks ago.Unfortunately I couldn't find it with the search.However, I noticed that after using other words, the search doesn't seem to get any posts that are made in Augusts.Mostly because all I found were posts at the end of July.To show a few random results;This topic has a very unique "word" in the title;https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/gps-external-antenna-for-v-kel-vk2828u7g5lf/If I search for "VK2828U7G5LF" (topic subject only), the result is zero.Ok, another one, topic started at August 16;https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/old-server-psu-pinout-(-astec-aa21060-)-or-how-to-turn-it-on/Searching for "AA21060' = no resultNext one on August 2ndhttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/problem-with-hmc253/No resulthttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/proximity-sensor-anyone-use-mtch101-or-mtch105/Searching for MTCH101, finally results!!!!So, something is going wrong here???Also, you can only sort on 'newest topic first', but that's only about when the topic was started.There is not a option, 'newest post first'.It's rather frustrating because on this forum people are pooing out new topics like the way bunnies do their magic.This means that some topics are waaay gone after a week (sometimes even days)

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2017, 03:22:39 pm
content: Quote from: b_force on August 27, 2017, 02:02:12 pmIt doesn't work. It's never worked.Quote from: b_force on August 27, 2017, 02:02:12 pmUse google instead. It works perfectly.

author: sasa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2017, 03:24:07 pm
content: The most forum engines fails in searching local database.Fortunately, Google frequently update active public sites/forums. Instead using forum engine, searching by Google gives exact link:VK2828U7G5LF site:www.eevblog.comOne of the most helpful options offered by Google.

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2017, 03:27:59 pm
content: Quote from: sasa on August 27, 2017, 03:24:07 pmOr simply: "eevblog VK2828U7G5LF"

author: b_force
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2017, 03:39:33 pm
content: Quote from: sasa on August 27, 2017, 03:24:07 pmI don't know, but most other phpBB forums I know, are doing pretty fine actually.Never had issues, except this forum.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2017, 07:32:20 pm
content: Quote from: b_force on August 27, 2017, 03:39:33 pmWell, this isn't phpBB..

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2017, 02:47:39 am
content: Indeed it's not.It's SMF ... something which is displayed at the bottom of the page - however, with Dave's choice of background, it's next to impossible to see, unless you select the text.

author: b_force
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2017, 01:14:11 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 27, 2017, 07:32:20 pmSo??What is your point?I was just replying to the comment that 'most forum engines fail in searching'.Which isn't true in my experience.In fact, this is the first one were it doesn't work.(and no, not all these other forums work on phpBB)

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2017, 03:12:04 pm
content: Use Google search instead, and specify to Google that you want to return only the results coming from eevblog.com. Example (type this in Google search):Code:VK2828U7G5LF site:eevblog.com

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2017, 05:27:01 pm
content: Quote from: b_force on August 28, 2017, 01:14:11 pmYour sentence implies that this, like the 'other phpBB' forums, runs phpBB.

author: b_force
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2017, 10:27:12 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 28, 2017, 05:27:01 pmI really don't see that implication at all?Maybe I should have used brackets.Doesn't matter, also not very relevant to be very honest.The message was, other forums can do it, so why is it such a struggle here?

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2017, 11:28:37 pm
content: Quote from: b_force on August 28, 2017, 10:27:12 pmBecause this forum uses SMF, and SMF search doesn't work very well.You could read about it in the many previous threads on the subject, except you probably can't find them

author: sasa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2017, 05:39:02 am
content: Quote from: b_force on August 28, 2017, 01:14:11 pmI had quite a problem in the past to search on any forum and what is wrote is based on my experience. Probably latest versions indeed use FTS feature of MySQL or whatever database engine is used. Without FTS feature, indeed, it is not easy or it is rather slow to accomplish search. However, with FTS feature, database become really huge...Anyway, it is not at all important is it phpBB, SMF or anything else. It is easy fixable by Google search site feature.I do not use forums at all, though, as any thread ends as this one searching needle in a haystack...

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 29, 2017, 02:17:19 pm
content: Quote from: b_force on August 28, 2017, 10:27:12 pmInitially, I didn't either - but then I didn't know about "phpBB" being one of the players. (I've never really paid much attention to the software different forums run - but I do recognise SMF.)Once I had Googled "phpBB", I got the same impression asMonkeh.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 29, 2017, 02:25:15 pm
content: But, yeah, I've not had a brilliant search experience with SMF software.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2017, 02:34:07 am
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on August 28, 2017, 03:12:04 pmGoogle search is broken too, unfortunately. It picked up that thread but as of this post, this query...Code:site:eevblog.com hawkins electrical guide...doesn't findthis thread of mine that's been around for almost a year. Ironically, the forum searchdoesfind that one.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2017, 10:38:22 am
content: Hi guys, hopefully not too Off Topique or rantyevery time I try to view this awesome IR thermal camera post by Fraser it bogs down my browser to a halt till I close the pagehttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-camera-related-videos-and-reviews/msg1220335/#msg1220335Fraser's other related posts load fine but not this one, have tried a few timesand given upPlease advise if the problem is the page or the browser, wasn't sure where to submit this queryThanks

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2017, 10:54:37 am
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on August 30, 2017, 10:38:22 amLoads fine for me in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and IE.(after manually copying the complete link)

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2017, 10:58:13 pm
content: Quote from: PA0PBZ on August 30, 2017, 10:54:37 amPA0PBZ, thanks for checkingand apologies are in order as unfortunately I pasted the wrong linkand updated my previous commentHere is the suspect one >https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-camera-related-videos-and-reviews/msg1220335/#msg1220335

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 12:17:18 am
content: I looked at the forum search settings and this is strange:I have no idea what SphinxQL is is or when that was set. Maybe that's the problem.I have changed to "Fulltext index", see if that makes a difference.I am also building a custom "full" index but it will take some time.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 12:21:52 am
content: Quote from: b_force on August 27, 2017, 02:02:12 pmI just tried that and it now works!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 12:28:16 am
content: And I just tried a search on new thread started yesterday by searching "Vocabulary for beginners" and it found it as the only match as expected.So the current full index seems to be up to date and being added to.I think the search problem could be solved....

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 12:33:33 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 31, 2017, 12:28:16 amThanks! It is definitely working better.Are there any options for the default order of search results? Or any way to display a "sort by" box, or "search within results"?

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 01:47:16 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 31, 2017, 12:17:18 amI hope you didn't turn this off, we switched to sphinx for full text indexing. If its not working we need to fix it, not turn it off.

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 01:55:04 am
content: It seems that somehow the cronjob that updates the sphinx index has been disabled/removed, likely by cPanelEdit: I have switched Sphinx back on and will investigate the issue. There is simply too much content to rely on MySQL to search the content which is why we moved to a full text search engine (Sphinx)Edit2: Issue resolved, the index has been rebuilt and the search is now working as expected.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 01:58:08 am
content: Quote from: gnif on August 31, 2017, 01:47:16 amYep, sorry, I switched back to Full Index.Seems to work fine though?Why did we switch to Sphinx? and how can we be sure it's not going to get disabled again and no one notice until the search gets bad enough?

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 02:54:02 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 31, 2017, 01:58:08 amMySQL is too slow when several searches occur at once, we saw widespread issues when Bing was using the search to index the website, but also when I tested it with a few concurrent searches. MySQL is not designed for this level of search/index, here are the stats from Sphinx:Code:collected 1276001 docs, 865.5 MBsorted 143.9 Mhits, 100.0% donetotal 1276001 docs, 865542064 bytesSo there is 143.9 million search terms being indexed. Services like google, ebay, amazon, etc... all use a full text search index such as Sphinx for datasets like this.To avoid cPanel messing with it again I have created a system account for sphinx and configured a crontab for it, cPanel will not touch this account as it knows nothing about it.Some more info on Sphinx (fromhttp://sphinxsearch.com/about/sphinx/):Quote

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 03:16:52 am
content: Thanks gnifIt's switched back to Sphinx and seems to work again.

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 08:27:16 am
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on August 30, 2017, 10:58:13 pmFor me it doesn't halt but depending on the browser used it takes about 15-30 seconds to embed all 36 YouTube links. Of course if you run out of memory or your connection is slow anything can happen.

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 04:46:31 pm
content: Quote from: PA0PBZ on August 31, 2017, 08:27:16 amConfirmed, slow load of this page is not server related but embedded content related.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2017, 09:53:36 am
content: Thanks guysthat page nukes my browser back to the Ice Age

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2017, 12:15:33 pm
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on September 01, 2017, 09:53:36 amTook about 10 seconds to load that on my Surface Pro Win 10 Chrome with 30 other tabs open (yes, I have a Tab sickness), but no problems.

author: b_force
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2017, 01:10:52 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 31, 2017, 12:21:52 amThanks!Would it also be possible to search on 'newest post/message first'?Now you can only select newest topic first (which is not the same)