The basics.

At the top of the forum page you will see two solid blue menu bars. Select the second, rightmost option is Advanced Search, and from there Show Threads, followed by Advanced Search. A menu box will pop up from which to select your sesrch parameters. See below.

You can search for posts or threads, and even for posts by specific members. I’d suggest experimenting a little and familiarizing yourself with various searches and their results.

You can select one, multiple or all open fora to search.

NOTE: Advanced Search doesn’t play well with search terms with three or fewer characters, or very common words. If I’m searching for thevterms 747 or changes, I’ll get an error page. I must force such searches by using quotation marks to enclose my search terms:

“747”

“changes”

Also note search converts all search terms to lower case. DYKWIA will actually search as dykwia, which would reveal both terms if they existed. No harm is done by using capital letters, but the capitalization is ignored.

Be sure to read the Wikipost at the top of the thread for further information, links to resources and alternatives to FlyerTalk Search.

Anyone else having issues with the search function today?

I am putting in search terms that I *know* are in threads and/or titles and am coming up with either limited or no results.

Terms such as?

it was on my head since this morning ... but the one that really made me think was an advanced search for posts, displayed by posts

morning joe* mika

I know it had been discussed in a particular thread ... I was just looking for the post to quote ... but nothing from that thread would come up in my search.

I was able to manually go back through the thread and find the post with those terms in it ...

This is what I got: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/searc...ning-joe*-mika

but the thread I wanted wasn't included.


Not a huge thing ... just feels wonky today.

(Similar things looking for a specific North Korea thread ... didn't come up either ... few more I don't recall)

I'm seeing that result when I do a search on Chrome -- please let us know if you see continuing wonkiness! Thank you for reporting.

A couple of recent examples.

I *think* I know there is a /PR thread on Russia Sanctions. I'm a pretty sure it is titled either "Russia Sanctions" or "Russian Sanctions"

Advanced search of any of those words in title doesn't being it up. (Using Chrome)



I also know there is a thread on the Steve Scalise shooting at the congressional baseball game practice. I searched a ton of different terms and couldn't find it.

Another poster in OMNI/PR had the same issue trying to find it.


I am convinced that the search function, at least for me and some other posters, isn't bringing up all of the threads it should.

Dergon, can you PM me those two threads? I will alert tech to them not showing up.

Advanced Search OMNI/PR thread titles, results as titles only, search term russia+sanctions

Results: Exxon seeks waiver from Russia Sanctions (link)

Advanced Search OMNI/PR and All open forums, thread titles, results as titles only, search term "scalise".

Results: "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

Advanced Search OMNI/PR and All open forums, thread titles, results as titles only, search term "steve".

Results: A gazillion threads on FT with "Steve" in the title, nothing with Steve Scalise. Steve Mnuchin, Bannon, etc. etc.

I've had to carry out some searches today, they've all worked flawlessly (the bug of las Friday was swatted suvpccessfully). But I suspect a Scalise thread may have had the last name misspelled, or the thread may have been deleted - because there appears to be no such thread on all of FlyerTalk.

If one has search issues when others don't, my suggestion is cache clearing as a first solution attempt.

FT search has been working brilliantly for me for years

suddenly barely works at all, dont remember exact date

just one example: only results are ancient threads

i guess i will start posting here next time i run a search, and then posting what should have been in results

Friday, most likely. A tweak was performed that broke search, but it was reversed Friday afternoon. We had a few hours without any search at all.

But if you're having current problems like that, I'd suspect cache issues.

IBobi may give us some other ideas when he's back at work ~9:00 am Wednesday Pacific time.

I need links to the threads that are trying to be found to report to tech. If I can't show them a specific non-result, I can't show them a bug. That said, thank you for the steps to reproduce.

proof?

this post (not thread) does not appear in searches : http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-c...l#post28677624

i cant speak for others, but i have a good memory, and have always been able to find ancient posts based on that memory, with zero problems, until this recent whatever happened. mostly using FT search rather than google. now there are basically no valid results for any searches. for example as i said, all results being ancient, including for terms that probably have many posts every day on FT.

btw, whoever mentioned "inurl:" in wiki - thanks! didnt know that one.

I had no problems finding that thread, from the forum or searching all fora.

Search term: "wrong"+"ff"

I had no problems finding that post, either searching by poster handle, or by searching within posts (results as posts) for alaskaair.com/content/.

But if there's a new post, or a post is edited in the case of searching within posts, it may require some minutes before the data base index is updated. I notice this when I'm moderating and doing thread splits or post moves in particular; the index can "loose" posts temporarily or experience false pagination problems.

yesterday, all the searches i ran for that post, using many different words in post, showed only ancient posts

yesterday was 12 days after post made

now this is interesting >
oneworld malaysia = doesnt work
"oneworld" "malaysia" = works