# What's wrong with search functionality?



## Beefnot (Mar 1, 2012)

When I run a search and put in two search terms, it appears to give me results with either search term, rather than both search terms.  This is borderline useless to me.  What's going on?


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## DeniseM (Mar 1, 2012)

[Correction]  The vBulletin search is glitchy - on the drop down menu, click on google search instead.


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## Beefnot (Mar 1, 2012)

DeniseM said:


> As has been discussed many times  the vBulletin search is glitchy - on the drop down menu, click on google search instead.



I have done that, but I find it to be a sub-optimal workaround.  Problem with google search is that it also searches people's signatures and profiles.  So if I want to search for what people have written about, say, "Welk", then I'm also going to get back all results with "Welk" in their profile or signature.


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## Beefnot (Mar 1, 2012)

I see this was merged with the "fatal error" problem, which I don't seem to experience anymore.  Before the site was taken down a couple few weeks ago for some maintenance, I used to be able to search for two terms without a problem.  Why is that?  What happened?  Is there some master admin setting that needs to be changed?  

Alternatively, is there some sort of Boolean term I can add, like "AND" between the terms to make it only return posts with both terms?

[The two threads have been un-merged. - DeniseM]


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## Makai Guy (Mar 1, 2012)

Beefnot said:


> I see this was merged with the "fatal error" problem, which I don't seem to experience anymore.  Before the site was taken down a couple few weeks ago for some maintenance, I used to be able to search for two terms without a problem.  Why is that?  What happened?  Is there some master admin setting that needs to be changed?
> 
> Alternatively, is there some sort of Boolean term I can add, like "AND" between the terms to make it only return posts with both terms?



The fatal error problem was fixed by abandoning vBulletin's built in search in favor of the server's native mySQL service to search the message data base.

Some cursory testing I did this evening would seem to indicate that a boolean AND between two searh terms seemed to work.


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## Beefnot (Mar 1, 2012)

Hm, the boolean "AND" is not working for me.


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## Beefnot (Mar 4, 2012)

*Okay, TUG search is officially useless...*

I absolutely cannot search for two terms and have results constrained to only those posts that contain BOTH terms.  This used to not be the case up until the last few weeks.


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## TUGBrian (Mar 4, 2012)

have you tried the google search feature instead?  it provides the exact same results.


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## Beefnot (Mar 4, 2012)

Yes, but if you refer to my post #3 above, you'll understand why I don't like it.  Google is just too thorough in what it searches.


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## Beefnot (Mar 4, 2012)

Been poking around the internet, and I think this is a problem with vbulletin's settings that can be changed.  See post #2 in first link below.  Although, it may be moot since MakaiGuy said TUG is now on MySQL for search.  Admittedly, I don't know much about SQL or coding, but I do believe this issue is configurable.  Did you upgrade or do something recently? 

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/sho...olean-search-with-quotes-inconsistent-results
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/fulltext-search.html
http://forums.devarticles.com/mysql...t-search-relavances-in-boolean-mode-3939.html
http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php?topic=202367.0


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## Beefnot (Mar 8, 2012)

So no remedy yet?


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## Makai Guy (Mar 8, 2012)

Try it now.  I've enabled Boolean searching as a perk for users identified as TUG Members.

In tests, searching for _"makai club"_ (with the quotes) found posts with the phrase _Makai Club._

Searches for _makai +club_ found messages containing both words, although not necessarily together.

Searches for _makai -club _found messages containing the word _makai_ but not the word _club_.   It mostly came up with posts that mentioned my username in one way or another.


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## Beefnot (Mar 8, 2012)

Oh man, this appears to work. This is great, thanks!!!!


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## Beefnot (Mar 9, 2012)

Hm, interesting thing. It works kind of, but something odd is happening. I did a search for "foxrun fsa" and got back results confined to those terms. But when I substitute "fsa" with "aviara", I get a more restrictive list, even though some of the threads that had come up with "fsa" actually contained "aviara" in the thread. So it is better than what it was by far, but something is awry with how it is working. It seems to have the same issue with or without adding the "+", so that doesnt seem to be the culprit.  What could be causing this you think?


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## Makai Guy (Mar 9, 2012)

I don't think words of less than 4 letters are being searched for. 

foxrun fsa --> 500 posts (the search limits it to 500 to keep from bogging own the server too badly).  I believe it should be posts containing _foxrun_ or _fsa_.   In a spot check of a dozen or so hits I didn't encounter _fsa_ at all, so it looks like either _fsa_ just didn't happen to show up in the posts I spot checked, or this 3-letter term was being ignored.

foxrun +fsa --> looks to be the same result list as _foxrun fsa_, which seems to confirm that the 3-letter fsa term is being ignored, even with the + in front of it, since again none of the posts I spot checked contained_ fsa_, as they *all* should if the _+fsa_ were being honored.

"foxrun fsa" --> just your post above, so apparently this is the only post where there two words appear together in that order.  It also seems to indicate that a three letter word can be part of an exact search phrase, I guess because the search phrase is actually 10 letters long.

foxrun aviara --> only gave me 12 results, which contained both words, seemingly acting like _foxrun +aviara_ rather than _foxrun OR aviara_. (??)  Note that I didn't try this format earlier.

I guess we'll have to play around with this a bit before we understand it fully.


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## Beefnot (Mar 9, 2012)

Yes I knew about the 500 thread limit, but That is strange, when i did the search last night, foxrun fsa gave me a far narrower list of results, so fsa definitely wasn't being ignored when I ran it last night. It was something like 30 results, and then when I subbed "aviara" for "fsa", the results were even narrower. 

But then I went back to the foxrun fsa search and confirmed that some of the results also contained "aviara", even though they didnt show up in the foxrun aviara search. I never put quotations around anything either. 

I am stumped right now then.


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## Beefnot (Mar 10, 2012)

Doug, take a look at the thread below, in thensightings forum. It contains both terms, foxrun and aviara. However when you run a search for both terms, it does not come back as a search result.  

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164561


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## Beefnot (Mar 10, 2012)

So the night of Mar 8th when three letter search was active (foxrun fsa), the search for foxrun aviara was not returning accurate results and still isnt. I would have to assume that this inaccuracy is not confined to the word aviara, but is emblematic of a broader issue wih how someing is configured.


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