SEARCH IS NOT WORKING!
 

I just tried a search ... got back 503 results ... changed the search to only search the subject line ... got back the same 503 results ... changed the search completely (two completely different words, subject only), got back same 503 results ...

Maybe re-indexing will fix it, but it sounds like the new caching feature in the search is not working properly.

Same problem persists.

Hmmmmm. I just tried a search by "keyword". Got back zero results. Ditto for one for a "User Name". Anybody else getting this?

I got the usual "Please wait ... we are processing ..." message, then a blank screen, with Internet Explorer 4.5. I revved up an old copy of Netscape 3.0 and got a message that said "Document contains no data" when it should have been displaying results. I've used Search successfully in the past. Has anything changed recently?

We're looking into this. We thought we had it licked last Friday but the problems seem to persist.

We did discover that the creator of our software/code seems to have created the search code to only return all occurences of postings in a given "topic" but not every "thread" that an individual may have on our bulletin board system. Very misleading and something we hope to rectify.

Thank you for your feedback.

Michael at WebFlyer- Thank you for your very prompt response. I continue to be amazed by the high quality of personnel at Webflyer. Kudos to you, again!!!

Thanks Michael - I was just about to post the smae problem (document contains no data).

Michael,

I haven't looked at the code, but it seems to me that if it was mistakenly searching a subset of the database, we'd get a reply screen with correct headers and footers and a message saying "nothing found" or some such instead of a list of posts. That's not what's happening. We're getting errors, content-free pages or blank screens. Maybe they should (also) be looking for something else.

Search has many problems:
1) sometimes it returns blank pages
2) sometimes it does not return some links which it should
3) sometimes it returns too many links - even ones which do not contain what you are looking for.

For example I tried to search for a word in Rudi's quiz, and asked it to look for that word in OMNI. it did not return back Rudi's posting.

Wildcarding and pattern matching would be a good feature (but missing). Another good feature would be the ability to search for a post which has WORD1 and WORD2.


[This message has been edited by pgupta011 (edited 08-18-1999).]

Thank you all for your generous and patient responses. I can't tell you how much your support means to me.

We're still working on the search problem and this is because we've had to deal with the survey issues which I'm sure you've all heard about.

I'll keep you posted and take your feedback into consideration in solving the problem.

------------------
ThanX...
Michael at WebFlyer

Michael: Just wanted to say, hang in there, take a few deep breaths, and keep on smiling http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You guys do a great job keeping us talking to one another and we all appreciate it. Sounds like today is just one of those days.

Any news on the search problem? All I'm getting now is a blank page.

Maybe everybody searching for answers to Rudi's Quiz has exhausted "Search" beyond recovery. http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Thats the good thing about computers - unlike humans they do not get tired.

I did uncover many subtelties of the search function playing around the first day with Rudi's quiz. Maybe Michael@WebFlyer should try to use the search feature to answer Rudi's quiz, and uncover the various bugs.

BTW - question #15 is self-referential.

[This message has been edited by pgupta011 (edited 08-21-1999).]

I still get the "white screen" as well http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif