02/27/2008 04:41:39 (CST). According to the beta search, that's the last post I made. I actually have a couple of more since then but none was showing up.

Being non-techie, I really don't understand how a search improvement would cause so many "unexpected" issues. :mad::confused::td:

Yes, it's true our traditional, classic search can't do 3-letter search. It had worked quite well for me, with a little boost from Google sometimes. ;) I liked the format. It generally gave me a good enough hit from the search result. I even got to see posts from just minutes ago.

As for the beta IB search, yes, that's nice now I can do 3-letter search, which I don't do that often anyway. Yes, it will even show me posts from ages ago (2-3 or even 4-year), which I couldn't in the classic search but I hardly had to dig up threads from that age.

Meanwhile, I also get to see the phantom pages/posts that were deleted and (supposedly) invisible from the general members. Even with an added data server, the search index will be unannouncedly out of sync, so we don't get to see those recently-made posts. The format/layout doesn't tell me straightforwardly if new posts are made to the threads I am following. We need to do the workaround-subscription-folder trick in order to get the result we can really enjoy.

Most of all, the general FT public don't get advanced notice at all, as far as the IB technology improvement goes. If enough folks complained, we may get a response from Kevin. It had happened at least three times this year that FT was unbearably slow, just out of the blue. We didn't know if that's a scheduled maintenance issue or what.

It seems to me there was never a schedule to perform whatever fixes, big or small, IB needed to do.

As far as the technology goes, IB is not effectively communicating to FTers. Most of the times, I feel ignored when reporting technical issues. Maybe the issues I ran into were not significantly enough. :rolleyes:

However, if the problems we are reporting seem to be ongoing, don't we at least get some say monthly progress updates? Is this too much to ask?

For what it's worth, "search" isn't picking up recent posts when I use it either.

A suggestion: When the page comes up saying perhaps there could be a link added through which the feedback report can be made?

Id be interested to know if FT has seen a drop in traffic since the new search began. I certainly have cut my time on FT by 75-80% since I cant easily search for threads like before and I seem to not have replies to threads older than 2-3 days (whereas in the past I would scroll down and find posts to threads as old as 2-3 weeks, a complete indication that the new search is not performing its job for others as well). This is very sad, and FT has yet to switch back to the old version. I wonder how many people will switch to other message boards for posting related airline topics. Ive noticed a lot more FFP related posts on airliners.net lately...is that going to steal FTers away?! Hope not, but who knows.

You suspect correctly.

The subscribed threads workaround I described below might help:

This doesn't depend on the indexing being up to date, but works in real-time like the forum index does.

Yes, and thanks ed1. It was helpful, but still many discussions I post in do not stay active as long as in the past. It used to be I would see active discussions in old posts quite frequently, but now once they seem buried by multiple pages it is becoming less likely that they are being read. Im just saying that the search function seems to be limiting ongoing discussion mostly to issues at the top of each forum; but perhaps my situation is unusual. Although this only started once the new search came about.

I agree that without the search indexing for several days, the My Threads, My Posts, and searching for topics to avoid posting an unnecessary new thread instead of finding and existing one have become a major issue, especially for the more experienced users. Continuing discourse also suffers when the threads drop off from the first couple pages of a forum index.

Search for fikry shows nothing in AAdvantage Forum
 

After reading a newspaper article on Mohammed Fikry, who was taken off an American Airlines flight last year, I searched for "Fikry" (without quotes) on the AAdvantage page, and also under "Advanced Search" Search Titles. Neither found any postings with "Fikry" in it ("Nothing found to match your search request").

Lo and behold, at the bottom of the first AAdvantage page, there was a 3-hour-old thread with "Fikry". What gives?!

Indexing of posts (necessary for the search to find posts) hasn't been working since Tuesday, so all posts since it stopped can't be found by searching.

I'd like to thank everyone who has posted in this thread for providing feedback and for championing improvements. The frustration is certainly understandable and you can be sure no one on this end takes any offense. In fact, I'm sure we all agree we're lucky to have a membership as passionate as you are. There are A LOT of online communities who don't see as many posts in a month on their entire forum as we see in a week in just one thread ... and to think, all we have to do to drive traffic is screw things up :p

I'm afraid I don't have any updates for you other than to tell you we've weeded through this thread and have compiled a list outlining every issue that has been raised.

Top of the list, of course, will be solving the index problem.

Thanks for the update!
 

Thanks for the update! Is it possible to get them a little more frequently? It's especially important when the indexer has been down for almost a week.

More traffic will make it harder for the search index to keep up, wouldn't it? ;)
Thanks for the headsup. As you know, there are more than just search problems in this thread. Good to know the FT hamsters are working on prioritizing those issues. :p

More importantly, any idea how soon the search index will be refreshed? I RBPed a post padder who's been doing it since 2/29/08 but none of those posts are showing up using search. I am sure mods can't perform their job due to the delay as well.

Well we appreciate all YOU do to help us here. It is great having such fast responders. This is a long shot, but any chance at simply bringing the old search format back?! pretty pleaaaaaaaaaaaassssssseeeeeee! :)

I believe Kevin already said "no" to that request. Our classic search is indeed history. :(

The IB tech team has the indexer working again, so the index should be current again. They have also added alert functionality to improve the reaction time should something go wrong with the index in the future.

I'm not the final word by a long shot, but I'd say the chances are slim and none, and slim ain't looking real healthy, if you know what I mean.

For all of its good points, the original search was creating too many problems for the performance of the site as a whole. Again, I'm not the final word, but to the best of my knowledge we reached a point where keeping the original search online would essentially lead to more system timeouts, unless and until the traffic dropped to a point where the original search could once again handle the load.

That, obviously, isn't a workable solution.

Having said all of that, it should be stressed that the new search is still a work in progress and we sincerely hope it will ultimately prove at least as useful if not more so than the original search. I realize that's difficult to envision at this point, but that's the goal.

Great feature!
 

Great feature, thanks.

Yes, I think the index is up to date. At least I am seeing those post from the post padder.

whats indexer?

This is not an update or revision of the old search, it is a complete replacement. Under the hood its a totally different animal, which means we can just plug in the old search code to add features. Everything we add needs to be reimplemented in the new framework.
Kevin

The new search doesn't work directly on the flyertalk database. Instead it works on a copy of the data that is formatted specifically for searching. By working on this copy it not only makes the searching faster, but also avoids causing contention in the main db (which is what was causing the board to become unusable). Obviously we need to keep that copy in sync with the flyertalk db and the indexer is the utility that does this. The delay should typically be a minute or two, but in this case the indexer ran into a problem and shut down. Its not a load issue. The indexer can handle substantially more than the typical rate of flyertalk (and has when we've had to reindex the entire db).
Kevin

I think it's something you need to do.

From my own personal experience, and also judging from the posts on this forum, this is the single most important use case for search on FT.

And just so I'm not a whining freeloader, I just renewed my subscription for two years.

In the specific case to which Kevin replied, Search>Advanced search>Search by username>Sort by post date (in search options) works great.

I just wish we could set search by post date as our default, or, if not that, the system default be set to that instead of relevance.

No, it doesn't - I can't tell who made the last post by looking at those results and they're sorted by the order in which I posted to the threads, rather than the order of the most recent posts on the thread.

(Bolding mine)

That's what we ALL like to see, one of the most important search feature in our classic search. Before IB can really add it in the beta search, you should try the work-around-by-subscribing solution that's been mentioned before. (Also mentioned here at post #176)

I think IB knows how important that classic search feature IS. (hint: FTers are not a quiet crowd. :p). IB knows this problem and is trying to work on it (or at least they say they are. :D). However, it's much harder than they expected. (Being non-techie myself, I don't know why.) I don't think they'd told us how long it would take to add this feature either.

Not trying to be pushy (maybe I am :p), may I ask does IB have a timetable for this feature (i.e. sorting by the most recent posts in the threads users had posted)? (Please tell me you do and better be a short/quick one.) @:-)

More User Problem Report...
 

On 2/12/08, Kevin you said this following problem had been fixed (but both ed1 and I replied right back it hadn't. ed1 provided you with examples as well in post #135 as partially quoted below.):I didn't have the answer to ed1's question till this evening. ed1, yes, the deleted posts are viewable to both the OP and the rest of FTers (maybe I should just say everyone is seeing the ghost. :p).

I spotted a FTer newbie with post count 2 under the profile but I was allowed to see 3 posts (1 post being deleted, assuming from the trash icon to the far right of that post ;)). I simply left-clicked on the her/his FT handle--then "find more posts by XXX". The next screen I had three posts shown. Of course, if you clicked on the link within that deleted post, you wouldn't see this post at all. But you can see what's been said in that supposedly deleted post. You would be taken to the phantom post place holder in that thread.

All in all, as of today (3/9/08), all the deleted posts are still present under search and this problem hasn't been fixed.

Kevin, did anyone ever work on fixing this search bug?

Please excuse the long, inclusive quoting below. It's necessary to support my reply, in this case:
In a Search>Advanced Search>Search by user, you shouldn't be able to see who the last poster to that thread was, you should only see the posts made by that user. So, yes, what I described does indeed do what it's supposed to do.

This particular case never did what you're expecting it to do.

Now, as to how to do what I think you want to do:

Using the workaround (referred to by lin821):

If you subscribe to all threads to which you post (you can even select no e-mail notification, if the e-mailed updates bother you), then the drop-down Quick Links>(Miscellaneous)Subscribed Threads, will give you a post index style list of all the threads to which you posted, with the most recently posted to thread listed first and with the new mail icon, bolded title, and a link to the most recent post in that thread.

it seems like i cant get results by thread even for the first page now. :confused:

I just did a search by threads and got 11 pages with a total of 271 results.

well, it lists threads, and you can go to first or last post, but it lists threads over and over again, whenever there is a hit in a post..

i seem to recall seeing it list fine just the other day.

Excuse me, but I think you're rather missing the point.

The previous search functionality was useful because it allowed you to see whether there'd been activity on threads where you had posted. This is what bostonbali was talking about, and it's what I'm talking about.

Your judgment of whether it 'should' work that way isn't really very interesting to me - I mostly care that the primary method I used to track discussions I'd been part of has gone away; and I don't seem to be the only one.

I'm sorry, that's just wrong. You can go and look at another board that uses the original search software and you will find the exact behaviour that I talked about. I'm sure the webflyer staff will confirm it too if you ask them.

NickW, I can see where both of you are coming from. I think you misunderstood ed1. I believe he knew what you were talking about. and I know what you are talking about. Everybody in the "right FT search minds" knows your point. :D

And everyone on this thread knows what we want the beta search to perform the way you are describing. However, IB hasn't delivered it yet. Our "self-help" group from fellow FTers found the work-around. That work-around has been quite useful to folks who start using it. For the moment being, that work-around is the only way to see the result the way our classic search would have delivered.

As for the "the way it should work" part, I think ed1 was referring to the sorting logic of the software. Even though I am not a programmer, here's my take on ed1's explanation.

In this example (Search>Advanced search>Search by username>Sort by post date), the current bata search is using username as the higher sorting criteria, which happens before the "posting date" parameter. Hence you are seeing the result by the post day from the user, instead of the last post. The result is filtered through the say user first then sorted by the post day from that same user. That's why ed1 refers to "what it's supposed to do" and what you "should" see. (I know that stupid logic of the search. :p)

However, is that what we FT frequent want to see? Of course not. Does IB know what we like to have in search feature by now? I bet they do. They are just not there yet. :(

Tunnel your frustration to IB directly and let them hear it. I am not sure if they already have enough from us. ;)

here's another thing (this may well have been mentioned, but i couldn't find it in this lengthy thread...and you guys are talking waaay above my head now anyway). in the old days, after i did a search for something specific (say, asheville, in the 'south' forum) you used to be able to save the page as a bookmark with the results.

if you do that now, it brings you to a blank search page...not very helpful for future use. :(

I miss being able to bookmark/save as favorite the results page as well, but there is a rather complicated way to save the actual page to your computer.

BTW, it actually it goes to an error message above the search page. There isn't a simple workaround for the problem you've discovered, but there is a workaround:

I suggest first creating a folder on your desktop for these saved pages:
Right click a blank spot on your desktop>New>Folder and name it something like FTSearch Results.

When you get your search results:

In Firefox:
File (very top left of browser window)>Save page as:
In save as box that comes up: On the left side click on desktop and then on your folder you created (above). In the name field replace what's there (generic FT page title of the browser window/tab you're saving) with a specific title, and click save.


In IE:
File>Save as:
In save Save Web Page box that comes up: On the left side click on desktop and then on your folder you created (above). In the name field replace what's there (generic FT page title of the browser window/tab you're saving) with a specific title, and click save.

The saved page (which isn't an actual web page now, but a computer file), will have links which won't work the way they they are.

To use a link on the saved page:

It might really be easier to just search again, but if you really need to save it, this is the only way I can come up with.

Another caveat:
This will only save one page of results, to save more than one page, you'll have to save each one individually.

gosh, ed1, you're right--that's a complicated solution!
nevertheless, i appreciate all your efforts here.
seems you've taken on the role of someone trying to help--thanks. ^

you're also correct that it'll just be easier to search again in the future. :td:

I'm having difficulties with search...when I search a forum, it will show that there are several pages of results, but when I click to go to the next page, the next page is blank!

This has been reported before, but, as with the other times, it's working fine for me. Have you tried the search again?

Is there a way to make the default search return results for the key word from the both the titles and the bodies? I have found that when I do a search for a key word such as northwest it will only return finds from the bodies. If the key word in not in the body of the message but only the title it will not be returned. The only way to find the key word in the title is to do an advanced search for “search titles only”. Now to find all of the results you have to do two searches to find everything.

Doing an advanced search for "Search problems" using "search entire posts" and "Show Results as Posts" does show the posts with the title of "Search problems" which has to include all posts in the thread without a different title used in that post. Besides, the original post in every thread has to have the same title as the thread, so even if every other post in the thread had its own title, the original post would still have to show up in the search I described above.

This will still not find all posts with the key word..
Here is an example. Do a standard search for the key word “bumble bee” in the “Free Travel Contests and Sweepstakes” forum. Do it again as you suggest doing an advanced search for “search problems” using “search entire posts” and “Show Results as Posts”. These searches will only return one result. Do the search again but change it to “Search Titles Only” You will find that it will find my post on 3/8/08. The standard search is not returning posts that the key word is only in the title and not repeated in the thread. Do these searches again with the key word “zippo” in the same forum. When I do a search I want it to return ALL references to the key word.