Kevin, can you also let us know if the indexer is current and up-to-date right now? Thanks!
Are you saying you guys haven't fixed the problem yet? (i.e. failure to pull up the threads when using the terms that did appear in the thread titles, like what SanDiego1K, Kiwi Flyer, and other mods had pointed out?) In terms of priorities, I believe this is one of the crucial bugs our mod team "demands" to be fixed. ;)

Kevin's post seems to imply that there is an issue with what date is showing up in the search results. Data 'leakage' is never a good thing.

Knowing the last date a thread has been updated doesn't seem as helpful as knowing the actual date of a post.

Edited to add: Just noticed this thread in announcements - Flyertalk Search Updates

I agree data leakage is not good. I only reported how the search was behaving. Whether that's what IB had intended or just a bug, IT folks should figure it out. Judging from Kevin's reply, it doesn't seem like a right behavior for search though.
Actually, a lot of folks (me included) expressed the desire to see if there's newer posts added to the threads. So that particular piece of info is helpful.

If the search can show the both dates (i.e. the last post & our actual posts), that will be great! @:-)

Thanks for pointing it out. I guess I accidentally spotted the 1st wave of search updates two days prior to the official announcement. :p

Thanks to IB for keeping us informed ^. We now know much better what's to come and what's been fixed. That makes giving feedback much easier.

I guess because I use the 'My Flyertalk/New Subscribed Threads' feature and it displays all threads that have been updated since I last read them, I don't have an issue with that.

Agreed!:cool:

I think that was a workaround solution ed1 had suggested. We didn't need any workaround in the classic/old search. That's why we want to keep it in the new IB search.

Glad to know IB is working on making this (part of) search come true. :D

I did a search on the terms "churning credit card" based on a thread title I had seen pop up on the home page yesterday. Nothing like that showed up in the first two pages of the search results for either the default or post date sorting.

Found the desired thread, #4 at the time in Other Credit Card Programs titled "Credit Card Churning" by just navigating to the forum.

One Incident Report of "HTTP Status 500"
 

Well, I was able to "produce" one search error this morning.

Under Other Credit Card Programs Forum, I search for "churning" using the dropdown textbox in "Search This Forum", this is what I got:

Search results provided by: ibSearch from Internet Brands
HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

message

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletExceptio n: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.p rocessRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:487)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.d oPost(FrameworkServlet.java:440)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:710)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:803)

root cause

java.lang.NullPointerException

note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/6.0.14 logs.
Apache Tomcat/6.0.14

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 4:10 am.

I think IB is still working on the title search part, as Kevin indicated in post #280. Don't know they didn't specify this particular problem in the recent announcement under the Technical Issues Forum. Possibly overlooked? :confused:

I guess that's also why I got the error message noted above (even we do know a thread with the exact title, Credit Card Churning, does exist.

Add me to the status 500 club.

Poor choice of phrasing. It was the was the functionality that "leaked" not the data. In the last release we added some code to show the "last thread update" date when viewing by threads. It was never intended to affect the display when viewing by posts, but it appears that we are incorrectly handling both the same way.
Kevin

Thank you for reporting this issue. I sent it over to the development team to research. We'll find out what's going on and get it fixed. Thanks again!

status 500 club
 

Add me as well - my first time to report it, but not my first time to see it:

HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

message

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletExceptio n: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.p rocessRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:487)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.d oPost(FrameworkServlet.java:440)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:710)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:803)

root cause

java.lang.NullPointerException

note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/6.0.14 logs.

May 22, 2008: My 2nd Status 500 Club Report
 

Not again! (I was looking up another member's profile.) :(

i'm part of the club now also...trying to use quicklinks (touted in the recent talkmail email) to see 'my threads,' i get:
:(
HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

message

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletExceptio n: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.p rocessRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:487)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.d oPost(FrameworkServlet.java:440)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:710)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:803)
root cause

java.lang.NullPointerException
note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/6.0.14 logs.

I've noticed the last day or so that sometimes when I click MyFlyerTalk I instead get NewPosts. This now has happened on 4 different computers.

Just checking - is there actually a plan to get back to a functional search capability sometime, or is the plan to keep the current (generally not useful) search model?

As far as I know, there's no going back. I would say the current beta search is not perfect but not that bad. Still a lot to be desired though. (At least we don't need the status 500 club.) ;)

IB is "slowly" working on the updates. You may want to read the FlyerTalk Search Updates Announcement to get some ideas.

Don't know what's not functioning for you the ways you use search. If you have some specific complaints/problems or some specific features you want to see, post them here in this thread, so the IB team know what to work on. @:-)

Another Horrible Fix Released?
 

It seems I am seeing the same horror as the other two mods reporting in the other thread ( here & here).

I was using the dropdown "Search this Forum" in S.P.A.M, I was fed with unbelievable threads
1) dated in the year 1970 (waaay before our FT time :eek:). We don't have FT in 1970, do we? :td:
2) scattered in SPG, CommunityBuzz!, OMNI, UA, Thai Airway, Qantas, DiningBuzz!, AA, ...I believe in every possible forum in FT. Didn't I just use "Search this forum" feature? :eek:

No need to mention most of the results were not closely related to what I was seaching for. :td:

What's wrong with the last released fixes?

sorry, I find it a bit hard to use search to bird dog this, but I had a strange results today.

Searching IN the IC HOTELS forum, for a string like NEW YORK, I get results from ALL forums and NOT just the forum I am in, as WELL the LAST POST results are showing DATES IN THE FUTURE like JUNE 28, 2008.

Is this an issue?

i cant search by forum anymore either. (changed yesterday/today?)

and i hadnt been running into problems for a while. :|

Search Meltdown
 

I think the search meltdown happened during the past weekend. At least last week I didn't see any ancient dates under "My Posts."

I just PMed Mikel about this "new" development. Hopefully we'll get some updates and REAL fixes very soon.

"1) dated in the year 1970 (waaay before our FT time "

I'm seeing 1969-68... for a 2-week member... ;)

'Sort by Relevance' returns correct dates, fwiw.
/.

search on member's posts returns 1970 dates

search the posts the same member made (eg by phrase or new posts) returns the correct dates - for the same posts

Using "search" in a specific forum results in finds from all forums. Not useful at all. :(

I e-mailed them about a "database error" this morning ~noon as FT.com was not resolving... now I'm getting this error too...

A quick and, unfortunately, incomplete update:

The Search team implemented a patch that was intended to fix the database errors members were seeing when they tried to search. Obviously, it appears now that patch might be causing other unintended consequences :(

The team is working on it at this very moment. Hope to have it corrected very soon.

I really didn't think it could (or would) get much worse but really, did they test it? I've been patient but I just searched within a FORUM and got results from the ENTIRE board ... this is really useless. :td:

+1.

Never thought it's even possible to have a patch that would kill the beta search. ;)

A fix to the "fix" is scheduled for this afternoon. If all goes well, this fix will correct the "Search by Forum" issue and the 1970s dates.

Just wanted to say that its not fair you're getting dumped on for what seems like ongoing IB mistakes here ... thanks for providing the updates.

Seems perfectly fair to me to dump on any and all of us when things like this happen, we're all in this together. I certainly take no offense, and am actually glad that FTers care enough to tell us you're upset, rather than just walk away :)

Thanks for the updates.

What about the status 500 club ;)? Is that part of the scheduled fix this afternoon?

it appears a partial fix has been implemented.

The good news: the newer posts show up first and you can again search a forum.

the bad: Threads show up more than once. A search for "credit card" in the American forum brings a listing of the same thread multiple times.

That was an existing problem with the IB Beta search (from before the latest patch).

It looks like it. The Flyertalk Search Updates Announcement hasn't been updated though.

I just did a couple of test searches. It seems:

1. No more ancient/future dates;
2. No more status 500 error;
3. "Search this Forum" is back from "global" to "local" forum;
4. Key word searches would work on both thread title and body. This one I am not positively sure. I didn't have many data points in mind to run my tests. Maybe some of our mods can test it more vigorously and see if this reported problem has been fixed.

I am guessing the default behavior is still thread-based, instead of post-based (i.e. the classic search). That would explain why the same thread pops up multiple time. Meaning if the search term matches X number of posts in one particular thread, the search result will pull up that thread X times (being thread-based).

May we please have the old search engine back as an option for those of us who want to perform searches rather than act as a part of a distributed, unpaid software debugging team?

Seriously, this search engine is very poor, and we already had a perfectly fine search engine. Feel free to have the current one as a beta engine or something, but please give us back the ability to perform searches!

Searching by user name in the forum I moderate returned results that were not sorted by post date, even though that was the indicated sort criteria.

Same problem as essxjay - searching by user name with criteria to sort by post date returned nothing.

Also searching by a term within a forum returned search results from other forums not specified by the search.


Please will you make the old search engine available to us?!

Sadly, the old search engine is no longer an option, as I indicated in this post.

In the way of a recap, while the old search performed well in that it provided complete and accurate results sorted properly, it was ultimately not built to withstand the amount of traffic FT generates and therefore was causing an entire system failure. Near the end of it's life, the old search wasn't only causing issues for those who used it in the form of very delayed search results, but was actually causing problems for every visitor as it was causing the entire site to load slowly, to the point of timing out.

So, the problem is, if we were to revert to the old search tomorrow, we would likely instantly experience slow load times on every page of FT for every member. So slow, in fact, that it could take minutes to load a page -- if the page loads at all.

Clearly, this is not acceptable.

Having said that, the current condition of search isn't acceptable either and it is being worked on, though I understand that is probably difficult to believe at times :p

When I did this (searching for myself), and selecting "posts", I got results sorted by the last post date of the THREAD, as opposed to what I intended, which was by the last date *I* posted. Logically, I would think that is what should be delivered, and if I wanted the results sorted by the last time the the thread got a post, I could search for "threads".