Problem With Forum Search

[EEVblog]

Take this topic as an example:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/ntc-help-needed-for-fluke-pm3082/
With the title: "NTC help needed for Fluke PM3082"

Search for "PM3082" in various ways and the thread doesn't show up at all.

Has anyone had similar issues recently?
I know that SMF search has always been a bit troublesome, but I just want to make sure it's not a recent thing like new threads are not getting indexed or something

[rsjsouza]

there is a recent thread where folks were discussing this.


https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/eevblog-search-engine-missing-threads/

[IanB]

I have to say that I never use the forum search on any forums. I never think it works very well.

For the query given, I would type the following into Google:

site:eevblog.com/forum pm3082

[Muttley Snickers]

I quite often use the forums search feature and have always found it rather lacking but I now suspect that something has changed of late to make it almost entirely unusable. As can be seen from the images below the first page is where I entered the search term and then on the second page the returned and expected results, the third image shows what is returned after I select page 2 or next as it then displays an "Adjust Search Parameters" page and the prior search results disappear altogether.

One thing I have noticed is that the returned search results are now displayed in reverse chronological order whereas previously I remember them as being all over the place, I think this is an improvement. I have tested the search feature on two different devices with the same result but somebody else may want to verify my findings, or the lack of.     

[klaus11]

Error,function Search the topics appear but when clicking on them the links do not work.

Server Error 500...

[gnif]

Error,function Search the topics appear but when clicking on them the links do not work.

Server Error 500...

We just moved servers, there are some things to sort out still. But even still I can not reproduce the problem, what were your search terms?

[klaus11]

Error,function Search the topics appear but when clicking on them the links do not work.

Server Error 500...

We just moved servers, there are some things to sort out still. But even still I can not reproduce the problem, what were your search terms?

DPO7104

[metrologist]

I searched "DPO7104" and got one result, this thread. I clicked it, and here I am...

[gnif]

Works fine for me too, I can not replicate the fault.

I did note however the top right search box is using the old search instead of sphinx, I will fix this today.

[klaus11]

Works fine for me too, I can not replicate the fault.

I did note however the top right search box is using the old search instead of sphinx, I will fix this today.

If it works now there is no error.

I searched "DPO7104" and got one result, this thread. I clicked it, and here I am...

8 results appear 

[metrologist]

I guess the forum search only searches in the subforum you are looking at. I get 8 results from home page.

Google gives me 6 results: DPO7104 site https://www.eevblog.com/forum/

[StillTrying]

Searching for the words    working on    gave a strange subject: html effect for me, haven't tried a different browser/PC yet.

Beginners / Custom Arduino PCB - not ong class="highlight">workingong> after assembly?

[gnif]

Searching for the words    working on    gave a strange subject: html effect for me, haven't tried a different browser/PC yet.

Beginners / Custom Arduino PCB - not ong class="highlight">workingong> after assembly?

What part of the forum were you on when you searched, I can't find the same result using the terms you provided.

[StillTrying]

"What part of the forum were you on when you searched"

The search page LOL, the search in the menu on the left, not the top right search box.
It's hardly a major problem.

Edit: Well I'm glad he found it, and it wasn't just me!

[gnif]

I managed to replicate it, and I can confirm it is a bug in SMF.

The search is doing a string replace for words to highlight, you used the terms "working on". The highlight HTML is "<strong>xxx</strong>", but "strong" contains "on". SMF is erroneously replacing the text in it's own tag, generating the output:
<str<strong>on</strong>g>working</str<strong>on</strong>g>

One day developers might learn that "preg_replace" on HTML content is a very bad idea, there is no excuse anymore with PHP's DOMDocument class. Or even simpler, split the content into words (explode) and apply the highlight to the words individually, then join it back together (implode), rather then a mass search/replace.

[timelessbeing]

I noticed another weird thing about the search. (At least, it's not the behaviour that I would expect.) The search results are in crazy order. It shows hits from 2017 before ones posted yesterday.

[Mr. Scram]

I noticed another weird thing about the search. (At least, it's not the behaviour that I would expect.) The search results are in crazy order. It shows hits from 2017 before ones posted yesterday.

Newer threads aren't necessarily more useful.

[timelessbeing]

I noticed another weird thing about the search. (At least, it's not the behaviour that I would expect.) The search results are in crazy order. It shows hits from 2017 before ones posted yesterday.

Newer threads aren't necessarily more useful.

... so are you going to tell us what is?

[Mr. Scram]

... so are you going to tell us what is?

Please leave your grating attitude in the other thread. Nobody is interested in us rubbing egos, no matter how sensual that may sound.

Newer threads may be small threads that died quickly, while older threads may have gone on for much longer and contain more valuable information. Relevance can be a metric, number of responses, number of responding forum members. There's more ways to skin the cat of presenting relevant search results.

[timelessbeing]

My attitude is that you are a very annoying person, and it's really weird that you're following me around. You are now blocked so go rub someone else. Scram, Mr. Scam.

The many many forums I've visited all sort search results by date. I think it's what people expect.

[metrologist]

We have the capability to create look-up tables with relative term rankings to score a search result. It's more better...but it is even better to be able to select a sort order too, if that is desired.

[timelessbeing]

Sorry false alarm. In advanced search, you CAN set the sort order of the results.

What about this: The search also seems to return only the most recent hit in a topic.
Example (this 5-page topic): https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/suggestions-for-high-resolution-tiltmeter-(inclinometer)-sensor/
Search for the forum for keyword "talyvel". You will see one result from the last page, but the word is mentioned 13 times going back to page 1.
This I think is a problem, especially on those 100 page topics.

[metrologist]

It looks like advanced search is just returning topics, not every message result within a topic. That might be desirable, but I think I recall seeing some search functions have a toggle to show topics or posts. The upper right search box returns all the results from within that topic, and it just returns the topics when searching from the forum index.

[timelessbeing]

It looks like advanced search is just returning topics, not every message

The results takes you to the newest message. If you select "Show results as messages" in the advanced search, the results will also show the contents of the post.

The upper right search box returns all the results from within that topic

That's good to know. At least I can pick a search depending on what I want.