Forum search fails to find all results

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:26 pm

It used to be possible to click on "Your posts" and then enter a search query.

Although this feature appears to still exist, it no longer works. No matter what word I search for, it always gives me 0 search results.

Ranakastrasz · Post by **Ranakastrasz** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:28 pm

It works on my end, so it isn't effecting all users.

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:35 pm

It seems that the search function in "Your posts" is not the only thing that doesn't work. When I do an advanced search for all posts by me (username: "Tekky") with the keyword "propulsion", then I get 0 search results, although it should return this post:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=40644 propulsion power of bidirectional trains

This seems to be a bug.

EDIT: I am getting a search result now, however the only result I am getting is this bug report post here (because it also contains the word "propulsion"), as if all my older posts were no longer indexed by the search engine.

Ranakastrasz · Post by **Ranakastrasz** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:48 pm

Going to your post history and searching returns nothing, so yes, it is your account, or something like that.

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:12 pm

I can find all of my posts using the search function, but only if I enter no keywords. As soon as I enter a keyword, all it can find are my posts that are from today.

Strange....

Jap2.0 · Post by **Jap2.0** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:22 pm

Same here.

Edit: Yup, I can confirm this post shows up now.

Post by **Loewchen** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 10:01 pm

The search function in general is broken at the moment, if I search for "Crash" in bug reports I can not find any results for releases 0.16, 0.15, 0.14, 0.13 and 0.12, while there are thousands.

Post by **Loewchen** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 10:16 pm

There seem to be thousands of topics that can no longer be found at all, searching for "Inserter" forum wide gives less than 300 results.
Searching for "Crash" in Bug Reports from the last month gives 24 results, it should be several hundred. It seems to be topic/comment age dependent, very old posts can be found (2014...ish).

Post by **Koub** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 10:52 pm

I'm so mush relieved : I've spent like 45 minutes looking for a post I remember having read withour finding it

.
It's not me getting senile \o/

Post by **Koub** » Fri Mar 08, 2019 6:44 am

[Koub] Merged both topics : "Your posts" is basically a research. I'm sure it's the same issue.

Post by **Loewchen** » Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:56 pm

An example:
This topic here: 65561, can not be found by any search, e.g.: search.php?keywords=Stack+overflow+erro ... mit=Search

Post by **Koub** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:32 am

If I may bump this topic : I massively use search for modereating. Especially (but not exclusively) in the Ideas and Suggestions subforum and the bug report subforum, which are very active nowadays.
If a forum admin could have a look at what breaks the search, I'd be really grateful - and would be able to do my moderator job correctly again.

Post by **Bilka** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:48 pm

Bump from me too. I'm trying to find a bug report and even google is failing me now.

Post by **Loewchen** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 1:37 pm

If indeed the search index needs to be recreated, I want to stress that having all words >2 letters indexed was incredibly valuable and should be kept without exceptions.

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 2:30 pm

Bilka wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:48 pm I'm trying to find a bug report and even google is failing me now.

When searching with Google, it is possible to limit your search to results from the Factorio Forums by entering

Code: Select all

site:forums.factorio.com

at the end of your search.

For example, to search for "trains", you would enter the following into Google:

Code: Select all

trains site:forums.factorio.com

I guess you already knew that, but I thought I'd mention it just in case you don't. Also, this may be useful for other people to know.

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:39 pm

After nearly a week, the forum search is still broken. It is really painful to have to use Google to search the forums, because there is no way to limit the search to individual sub-forums.

Is the forum administrator at all aware of this issue? I assume the forum moderators have a way of contacting the forum administrator?

invisus · Post by **invisus** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:49 pm

Yep... this has been very painful.

The best I've come up with so far to use google is both "site:" and "inurl:" combination... seems a bit better:

Code: Select all

<search terms> site:forums.factorio.com inurl:f=7

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Tue Mar 12, 2019 11:40 pm

invisus wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:49 pm The best I've come up with so far to use google is both "site:" and "inurl:" combination... seems a bit better:

Thanks, I didn't think of using "inurl:".

nuhll · Post by **nuhll** » Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:19 am

I dont understand why use a forum software like phpbb instead of e.g. vbulletin.

Is it the cost?

Tekky · Post by **Tekky** » Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:07 pm

It's now been nearly two weeks and the search function still has not been fixed.

Is the forum administrator at all aware of the problem? I wrote a PM to Factorio staff member Sanqui, but received no response (yet).

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