ozstamps

My tech knowledge is pretty much non-existent, but rather than folks asking FT all the questions about vbulletin's problem, (hardly wise or fair!) out of curiosity I went to see myself how this issue was impacting on other large BB:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/

And can't really see it being discussed at all, unless I missed it. Can anyone else? They seem to be discussing every thing possible about vbulletin - except "search" not working on large boards.

Their "search" function certainly works, () and typing in the word "search" on their Search box did not seem to offer any pertinent threads on it either.

Maybe I missed it? Anyone else offer a link to a thread there, which surely there must be there if it is a widespread user issue?


Glen

FlyerTalk 'Oz Fest #2' in Sydney May 27/29, 2005. Click for details

civicmon

This search being offline is a buncha BS IMO. I don't see why it's offline due to a 'technical problem'.

Offtopic.com is the busiest vbulletin website on the planet, and guess what, their search works!! (though it's limited to paying subscribers for server issues + sub persuasion) If it works there, why not here?

studentff

Not directly what you asked for, but here is a link to a thread there in which johnatwebflyer talks about trying to improve FT performance.

Chasing some of the interesting links in that thread reveals some useful information, specifically

http://web1.flyertalk.com/vbtest/info.php
http://web2.flyertalk.com/vbtest/info.php

If one reads the version information it appears that FT is running an April 1 build of PHP v 4.3.11. (It was released the day before on Mar 31.) My understanding is that 4.3.11 fixes the unserialize() bug in 4.3.10 that degraded performance so badly.

So one can only presume that the FT tech staff is currently testing the new PHP 4.3.11 and will be shortly announcing the resumption of search capability. We can hope!

ozstamps

I just wondered why on the vBulletin website this appears not to be an issue, but as I say, I might have missed the thread on it there.

Glen

FlyerTalk 'Oz Fest #2' in Sydney May 27/29, 2005. Click for details

John at Webflyer

Hmmmmm.

You think I turned off the search because I like to make you mad?

SAT Lawyer

John,

I'm sure there's a much more compelling reason than that. But others have made valid points about other vbulletin sites presently having active search functions. I'm out of my league when it comes to technical issues such as this, but I think there is a simple question here:

If other vbulletin sites are able to currently offer search functions, then why is FlyerTalk unable to do so?

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

- Chris

Randy Petersen

you might want to re-read your post, there was something very interesting: "though it's limited to paying subscribers for server issues + sub persuasion".... Imagine that, paying subscribers. I'd say right now we're even, no paying subscribers (yes, they also have ads) and no search.

Seriously, we have upgraded to the new PHP fix and unfortunately it has made the overall speed of FT pretty good, but in a five hour return of search over the weekend it caused some major problems and now we're back to the drawing board. Will implement a few other solutions in the next few weeks but obviously had hoped that the PHP fix was the problem and no way of actually knowing until it was released.

BTW, what do you pay on Offtopic.com to get search privileges? Might be something we look in to because it seems you are happy with that arrangement.

Thanks for any input.

Football Fan

I have pretty much stayed out of this discussion, but I would just like to remark that on another bulletin board I visit, which is somewhat comparable in size to Flyertalk, but actually a little bit smaller, search had been completely turned off for quite a while already - much longer than it had been turned off on Flyertalk - I believe due to the same technical problems with vbulletin that have been experienced here.

While I understand and share the frustration of not being able to do searches on Flyertalk, I personally do not feel that it is fair to direct any anger about this at Randy or the technical staff, especially, and while I believe that everyone contributes to the Flyertalk community and experience with their posts, I am not sure if this entitles some of us to what might be considered a somewhat demanding tone.

By the way, since it has been brought up, the other site recently turned search back on for "contributing members", but in peak traffic times, search needs to be taken down even for those who made a contribution, simply because the server would crash otherwise. But my personal opinion is that it might be an interesting solution to look into, however, to me it seems like a business decision to make that is solely up to the owner of Flyertalk.

I'll admit that my technical expertise is extremely limited, so I cannot comment on why other large vbulletin boards might be able to keep search up, but I just wanted to share the experience from the other message board I visit. Their problems also started when they introduced a newer vbulletin version (which has other benefits). Those guys who run that bulletin board are also very tech-savvy, but just like we do here, they say that they do have to wait for whenever a newer vbulletin version will have fixed the problem to be able to turn search back on for all members, as far as I understand.

civicmon

I've already made my offer to pay for this site provided it's ad free.

Read the thread in the suggestion forum... i do believe I posted on there.

That being said, I do agree that their setup works well. The search function eats up server speed which is why it was consolidated to current subscribers only. That was added... just 2 weeks ago...I don't remember. Along with other functions (such as avatars, user titles and PM), that's what subscribers get.

w/o an avatar, no one shows respect on that site. Name of the game I suppose.

Again, why do other vB sites have it, but not here?

and no, I don't believe it was shut off to make me mad.

I do appreciate what you're doing, I do sound ungrateful but it's one of those "if it works there, why not just copy it here" sort of things.

ps, offtopic.com subscriptions are ~$30/yr, an amount i'd gladly paypal you provided I didn't have to surf with intrusive ads.

Axey

I think the problem with the "Pay for Search" concept is that since search is such a basic, essential function of a BB, you'd end up with a ton of people paying and put yourself into the exact problem you're having now -- too many searches being executed simultaneously. Yes, you'd have more cash for more horsepower, but you'd also be losing out on ad revenue.

Personally, I'd be looking into fixing the (fairly inefficient) way vBB does searches, or perhaps a search appliance that would allow you to tweak the indexes so people would be able to focus their searches a bit better -- by username, forum, etc. Wouldnt be as seamless as it is now, but that can be fixed with a bit of re-coding.

I've handled various extremely busy BBs for entertainment companies in the past and have been in this very same situation. There's no real easy fix without a lot of cash being thrown around. Growing pains..

Randy Petersen

We are certainly aware of this. Here's the update. I have no plans to charge for search despite what seems to be a trend for other big boards. Our challenge is that most other cords can limit search to longer words such as 5 or more letters and it's no big deal. Because of the nature of airport codes, etc. we have to go to three letter word search and you can guess what that is like in nearly 4 million posts.

The security fix of PHP did not help the function of search as we had high hopes for. Traffic in the first quarter of 2005 is up significantly which has somewhat made a breaking point for search.

Our plan which is currently in process. We have purchased a new server just to handle search. This was, with redundancy, while search may crawl, it won't effect the performance of the Board itself. We are right now re-indexing all 4 million threads in a test off line. This looks like it is going to take 3-5 days. Once we find out if we have some corrupted indexes, we will fix them and then launch the search server - without paid search being part of the equation. In addition, another load balancer is being considered to help since we have also decided to add another server as a graphic server to hold the smilies and static design pages of FT. This should help reduce even more any stress on the existing three servers that currently serve FT.

And as our monthly bandwidth requirements have mushroomed from 4Mbps to nearly 6Mbps in recent months (in addition to the burstable to 10 Mbps) it's a constant struggle to keep up. We very much appreciate the comments from our members who are more technical up to date on these types of things (attorney28, ScottC, Axey, etc.) and hope that this news is greeted with some relief and if you'll grant us the next few weeks to perfect these changes i think we'll all be happy in the end.

cactuspete

Thanks for the update. We appreciate the efforts.

Question: Although the 3-letter search function is handy, do you think that most FTers would be willing to sacrifice that function and settle for a 5-letter search just to have search functional again?

gt_croz

PHP is open source, right? So one could replace the source code for unserialize() in the latest sanctioned version of PHP, and recompile it.

The only way I could see this being a security risk is if a security vulnerability was the motiviation for the PHP developers rewriting unseriailze()

civicmon

phpbb is open source (i'm a co-admin/mod on a site that uses it) but vB which is vastly superior is a private one to my knowledge. I may be wrong though, but I know phpbb is completely free.

Traveller

Sorry to be off topic a bit....

There is a thread here on FT that has a link pointing to this information. It listed alot of other BBs that I found interesting, like an Audi BB, etc. Does anyone know the thread I'm talking about or the link to that site?

(Of course with search down, I'd never find the thread. )