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I Remember When ....

by sbucciarel Banned
32 replies
I remember when the search function worked flawlessly... and now it barely works at all. Last two searches retrieved one out of six posts and 0 out of 8. Isn't it about time you got that straightened out? Your growth hacking efforts have succeeded in attracting huge amounts of serial spammers and it would be nice to have the one tool needed to check their history of posting to report them.

I also remember when we had a nice little icon depicting participation in a HOT thread, but have given up hope that will resurface.
#remember
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

    I remember when the search function worked flawlessly... and now it barely works at all

    My memory indicates otherwise. Searches were incomplete long before change of management - definitely not flawless. So they inherited that problem. I suspect some of it might be left the way it is due to server load. Searching is CPU intensive.

    My suggestion for the whole board is when making suggestions we should at least try and make then not drip with disdain. That never goes over well and works against solving issues.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      My memory indicates otherwise. Searches were incomplete long before change of management - definitely not flawless. So they inherited that problem. I suspect some of it might be left the way it is due to server load. Searching is CPU intensive.

      My suggestion for the whole board is when making suggestions we should at least try and make then not drip with disdain. That never goes over well and works against solving issues.
      Make your suggestions in your own thread. Alaister is well aware of the search problem. It was broken immediately after the new design was implemented ... they did not inherit the problem. I never had problems with searches before and neither did many of the people who bother to routinely report spammers. There are many threads on this already.

      I'm sure a big corp like freelancer doesn't need a little fanboi like you running around defending every post you don't like.

      This thread is addressed to admin to please address the search function. The spam, basically all the new people signing up for the purpose of dropping spam links is getting out of control. The social media forum was overrun with it and others are too and without being able to search the spammers histories, we don't know whether we're reporting serial spammers or a one time mistake on their part.

      I'm sure Alaister is aware of how much spam I report, Mike, so please run along and bully the people in the SEO forum.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        actually I commented on the part of your thread that was not a suggestion (leaving out the whine at the end). I've done searches within the last month where the usual showed up so it helps to isolate the problem.

        As for where I can and cannot post? Meh. leave that to mods or inform me of your status change.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Agreed, the WF search blows.

    The last couple of days are worse than usual, only returning around 2 results when I know there's 10s/100s of results that should be shown per keyword being searched.

    What's worse is we can't really suggest for people to search for same/similar threads because the WF search is useless. So then you end up with dozens of same subject threads, day after day, after day...

    I've been using Google to search WF.

    BTW, the search issue is an old problem.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Today especially sucks but I was attempting to isolate the issue from the longstanding one implied.- certainly not "flawlessly". So there are two issues. I actually had to do a number of searches last week and all went fairly smoothly.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Today especially sucks but I was attempting to isolate the issue from the longstanding one implied.- certainly not "flawlessly". So there are two issues. I actually had to do a number of searches last week and all went fairly smoothly.
        Yea, the search has some good days but mostly useless.

        Use the site:domain.com search on Google, you'll get way more results. It's not as detailed as the WF advance search page options but it's better than nothing.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Agreed, the WF search blows.

      The last couple of days are worse than usual, only returning around 2 results when I know there's 10s/100s of results that should be shown per keyword being searched.

      What's worse is we can't really suggest for people to search for same/similar threads because the WF search is useless. So then you end up with dozens of same subject threads, day after day, after day...

      I've been using Google to search WF.

      BTW, the search issue is an old problem.
      I'm not doing keyword searches. Prior to the site being sold, I always got thousands of results for keyword searches. Always. And I always got the full history of posts when looking up posts per profile of different users.

      This problem is noticeable mostly to moderators and member moderators that report posts. When looking up a profile and clicking to see their previous posts, either nothing comes up or one or two comes up and today has been particularly bad. Some days if you click the link for the posts often enough for one person, you'll get most of their posts, as long as they don't have a lot of posts, which is better than none or just a few. When I click on my own, I don't even get close to 1/4 of the posts I have, but I don't really need to look up my own. This problem has been reported many times ever since the design was implemented and hasn't been fixed yet.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

        . And I always got the full history of posts when looking up posts per profile of different users.
        From a programming stand point it will help to isolate the issue. It s just a fact that prior to any redesign the full history of posts had issues. It routinely cut off more recent posts on some days. First noticed it about a year ago.its likely a database related issue. I guess some back end issues could have been done but theming VB doesn't usually affect that kind of thing
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        • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

          From a programming stand point it will help to isolate the issue. It s just a fact that prior to any redesign the full history of posts had issues. It routinely cut off more recent posts on some days. First noticed it about a year ago.its likely a database related issue. I guess some back end issues could have been done but theming VB doesn't usually affect that kind of thing
          Maybe you had problems. Many of us didn't have any, as already stated. Since the site was moved, many people have had the same problem as indicated by the rash of threads about it. There are quite a few more in the other forums. These are just the ones in the suggestion forum since the site was moved.

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...ll-broken.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...rch-forum.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...-function.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...tory-date.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...osts-name.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...t-working.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...ts-broken.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...t-working.html

          http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...d-threads.html
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          • Profile picture of the author Cali16
            I second this request, Suzanne. Just today I was trying to search for something in one of the forums using a keyword phrase, knowing there would be many threads on it. But, after a few minutes of "waiting", it just took me back to the page I was already on. I tried several times but kept getting the same results.

            There are many times I get 0 results for different things that I'm searching for, such as posts by a particular member, and so on. If I look at my own post history (e.g. to find a thread I'd posted in recently), the history is not up to date - not by a long shot. The search function definitely used to work much better than it is currently.
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          • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
            Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

            Maybe you had problems.
            yeah uh huh...only I had issues last year...... except.....

            http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ng-search.html

            http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...-properly.html

            http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...t-working.html

            Just a few. Fact. Glitches like this have been the norm from last year. Anyway sure they have been on it.
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            • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

              Anyway sure they have been on it.
              Yeah ... since June 3rd at least
              http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...een-fixed.html
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              • Profile picture of the author Kay King
                Mike -

                Search stopped working when new owners moved the forum...it's been improving but now has crashed again. Search has been functioning "sort of" for the past month. It often took 3-4 tries to get any results and often had a gap of a month or more in the results.

                Now it's a database error. Search stopped working late yesterday.

                I think at some point the posts about this do drip with sarcasm - this is major tool on this forum...and a basic forum function.

                Search is important to those looking for information on specific topics, identifying spammers and trolls, and doing research on WSO sellers to see what they post and whether they appear knowledgeable.
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                • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                  Kay check my links. The issue of search last year is not my imagination. Did this recent problem have to do with the design changes? Possibly if they made more detailed changes than design but I have worked with VB theming and it doesn't usually affect function.

                  anyway I am not denying that theres a problem with search I am merely stating it is an issue that raised its head last years before FL took over and before a redesign. As far as I know this board still runs under some form of Vbulletin Which has got so progressively worse that they are now losing market share to Xenforo and Invisionzone (IPB).
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                  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                    Did this recent problem have to do with the design changes? Possibly if they made more detailed changes than design but I have worked with VB theming and it doesn't usually affect function.
                    The design came first, followed immediately after by the move to their own servers. Immediately upon moving to their own servers, the search function broke and hasn't worked correctly since. Whatever little problems you had a year ago, the majority of us haven't noticed since because until the move, no one has really been commenting on it.

                    At exactly the same time that the search broke, the spam filter that Allen had in place also broke or was removed. The forum flooded with spam by the hundreds and hundreds of posts. There ... now you have the timeline of events.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
                      The issue of search last year is not my imagination
                      Not your imagination - we've had problems before. Prior the move to a new platform in late 2008...search didn't work at all for years. Over the past few years there have been times when search function wasn't working right and had to be fixed.

                      Search was working fine up till the move to the new hosting or servers or whatever after the sale of the WF. New owners were aware of search problem and working to fix it. But it's never really been fixed. It's been working better and well enough to be effective.

                      You had to try it several times to get a search result - often there would be a one-two month period left out of the results. It's been getting better but now it's back to nothing.

                      We're not saying it was perfect in the past - we're saying it isn't working worth beans now
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                      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                        Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

                        We're not saying it was perfect in the past - we're saying it isn't working worth beans now

                        You perhaps not Kay but flawless is the same as perfect which was NOT the case and why I responded. Overall I find the move to Amazon an all around great move. To be honest previous to that I could never understand why an extremely well monetized service used to have database errors constantly that took the whole site out of commission for hours at a time. That hasn't happened at all in my experience since the move and its a vast improvement. in terms of suggestion it might be time to consider moving away from VB entirely. They were bought out a few years back and its been downhill ever since.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

                      the spam filter that Allen had in place also broke or was removed. The forum flooded with spam by the hundreds and hundreds of posts. There ... now you have the timeline of events.
                      Don't need your time.line of events. Already know what they are and the issues with VB over recent years AND on this forum. I also have little bit of logic that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Sure its within the realm of possibility that design might have had some issues done concurrently but having worked on VB its just a fact that changing colors, icons and smilies does not break search functions by itself in VB theming.

                      Look I 'll call spade a spade I wouldn't have even commented on this thread if it was just hey this is broken could you fix it. Its about the ongoing expressions that all was "flawless" before and now you guys messed it up that is part of an ongoing narrative . Your objection to me pointing out certain things calling me a Freelancer "Fanboi" says it all and that I was right on the money that the tone is all about that narrative.
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                      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
                        Banned
                        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                        Don't need your time.line of events. Already know what they are and the issues with VB over recent years AND on this forum. I also have little bit of logic that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Sure its within the realm of possibility that design might have had some issues done concurrently but having worked on VB its just a fact that changing colors, icons and smilies does not break search functions by itself in VB theming.
                        Your knowledge of whatever is impressive.

                        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                        Look I 'll call spade a spade I wouldn't have even commented on this thread if it was just hey this is broken could you fix it. Its about the ongoing expressions that all was "flawless" before and now you guys messed it up that is part of an ongoing narrative . Your objection to me pointing out certain things calling me a Freelancer "Fanboi" says it all and that I was right on the money that the tone is all about that narrative.
                        Yawn. Your duty is now done, I assume? Mike was here to save Freelancer from comments and narrative that he disapproves of. It was working flawlessly for me and since I started the thread, perhaps I should have stated that it was working flawlessly for me prior to the move, but since I addressed this in the Suggestion Forum, and wasn't aware this was one of your hangouts, I wasn't as specific as I should have been.

                        Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
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                        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                          Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

                          Your knowledge of whatever is impressive.
                          Thanks. the "whatever" is called Vbulletin and its the software the forum runs on. Knowing that might shed some light on the issues and why they might not be as simple as flicking a switch and fixing. ( fixing other peoples codes is a beast sometimes)

                          Yeah ... since June 3rd at least
                          Search has been fixed
                          Yep happens all the time. Fix something and it gets broke again or ends up breaking something else down the line. Fact of life in programming

                          Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

                          Yawn. Your duty is now done, I assume?

                          Muah? I am just warming up. look for me in other threads where the narrative overrides just making simple suggestions. Can't have the new owners thinking we are all whining we want Allen back "fanbois" . Onward and upwards. Allen is no doubt enjoying the cash, having a martini or two and moving onwards and upwards himself.
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                          • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
                            There've been problems with search here for a long time. They're just different problems.

                            The "Find threads by" function stopped working as it was supposed to years ago and hasn't ever gone back to its intended use. Not sure if that was a deliberate change or something that broke and was never fixed.

                            The "Find more posts by" function was sporadically broken prior to the change of ownership. That was most often due to the database indexes not syncing, as it was explained to me. I believe that was connected to the other server problems at the time. Those were pretty severe, but the search problems tended to be short-lived.

                            The move to Amazon's system solved a lot of those issues. The server glitches I've seen since have mostly been minor and very temporary.

                            The search thing now appears to be systemic, rather than server-based.

                            It's broken more days than not. Occasionally it ends in a blank page. Most of the time, I get results with big gaps. It usually seems not to find consistent (or any) results before early May, around the time of the move to Amazon.

                            If my experience is representative of the norm, it suggests the search function is looking at two copies of something. Either the database or the indexes. (Most likely the latter.) What it looks like to me is a newer index that isn't always up to date and an older one that is accurate to the point at which it ends.

                            I am not a vBulletin expert, so I could be way off on this, but the symptoms might be helpful in finding the problem.

                            I would be very surprised if the design changes had anything to do with it.


                            Paul
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                            Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.

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                            • Profile picture of the author Alaister
                              I know there have been a lot of search issues and we work on fixing a bunch of them. They were working but there seems to be some new issues.

                              I have one of our engineers look at these issues and will get back to you all
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                              • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
                                Banned
                                Originally Posted by Alaister View Post

                                I know there have been a lot of search issues and we work on fixing a bunch of them. They were working but there seems to be some new issues.

                                I have one of our engineers look at these issues and will get back to you all
                                Thanks Alaister. Just did a profile search and it worked perfectly. Just one, but none has been working for 3 days so that's a good sign.
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                                • Profile picture of the author Alaister
                                  Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

                                  Thanks Alaister. Just did a profile search and it worked perfectly. Just one, but none has been working for 3 days so that's a good sign.
                                  We made some changes which seems to have fixed everything. We've done tests on our end and it is all working.

                                  Would you be able to test on your end?
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                                  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
                                    Banned
                                    Originally Posted by Alaister View Post

                                    We made some changes which seems to have fixed everything. We've done tests on our end and it is all working.

                                    Would you be able to test on your end?
                                    Here's what I've noticed so far. Most of the profiles of spammers or potentially spammers are newly signed up and have less than 50 or so posts. A few have a few hundred. Today, I was getting all the results from their profiles ... much better than before and I didn't have to try over and over again to get the results. Came up pretty fast first time.

                                    I just clicked on my own profile and I only get results up to Aug 15th.

                                    So then I did a couple of keyword searches and it returned plenty of relevant results. That was good.

                                    So then I chose another member, Paul Myers, with a lot of posts and it returned results to 3rd May 2014, about 385 posts.

                                    Then I randomly chose someone I don't know who had 83 posts to see all their posts and it showed 82 results.

                                    Another random choice to see all their posts returned 479 out of 524 posts. I even checked him twice with the same results. His results went all the way back to 2009, so I don't know why me and Paul's results just go back a few months.

                                    I tried Alexa Smith's posts, as she has over 24,000 posts and it only returned 218, going back to Aug 17th, 2014.

                                    Hope this is helpful.

                                    It worked better today than it has since it broke. Much improved results.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    ADDED: I just did a search for an url that a spammer has been dropping under different user names and it turned up zero results. I just saw one so I know there's at least one that it didn't find. That kind of search used to work for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author waterotter
    I just checked posts by Suzanne ^^^^ and it only showed 113 posts. Not accurate at all.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alaister
      Thanks for your feedback. It's good to see that it has improved. We're still working on trying to debug the issues that you've seen and identify what is causing it.

      Thank you

      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Here's what I've noticed so far. Most of the profiles of spammers or potentially spammers are newly signed up and have less than 50 or so posts. A few have a few hundred. Today, I was getting all the results from their profiles ... much better than before and I didn't have to try over and over again to get the results. Came up pretty fast first time.

      I just clicked on my own profile and I only get results up to Aug 15th.

      So then I did a couple of keyword searches and it returned plenty of relevant results. That was good.

      So then I chose another member, Paul Myers, with a lot of posts and it returned results to 3rd May 2014, about 385 posts.

      Then I randomly chose someone I don't know who had 83 posts to see all their posts and it showed 82 results.

      Another random choice to see all their posts returned 479 out of 524 posts. I even checked him twice with the same results. His results went all the way back to 2009, so I don't know why me and Paul's results just go back a few months.

      I tried Alexa Smith's posts, as she has over 24,000 posts and it only returned 218, going back to Aug 17th, 2014.

      Hope this is helpful.

      It worked better today than it has since it broke. Much improved results.
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      ADDED: I just did a search for an url that a spammer has been dropping under different user names and it turned up zero results. I just saw one so I know there's at least one that it didn't find. That kind of search used to work for me.
      Originally Posted by waterotter View Post

      I just checked posts by Suzanne ^^^^ and it only showed 113 posts. Not accurate at all.
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      • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Alaister View Post

        Thanks for your feedback. It's good to see that it has improved. We're still working on trying to debug the issues that you've seen and identify what is causing it.

        Thank you
        Still broken...

        A simple click on "Find all posts by ForumGuru" shows posts going back to only July 31st, 2014.

        So to recap: The posts shown only go back a month or so and the post count number is way, way, way off. The search function has been broken in one way or another for months...please try to dedicate more resources to fixing it properly.

        You declared the search function fixed way back in June...

        http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post9242852

        ...but here we are in September with a broken search still.

        Thank you kindly.

        -don
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        • Profile picture of the author Alaister
          Hi Don,

          The search functionality became really messy after we moved all the databases to Amazon. We're going to completely rewrite the database storing all the posts and threads and then rebuild the search functionality on top of this.

          This will take some time however I will keep everyone in the loop as to the progress and when we expect to have it all fixed.

          Originally Posted by ForumGuru View Post

          Still broken...

          A simple click on "Find all posts by ForumGuru" shows posts going back to only July 31st, 2014.

          So to recap: The posts shown only go back a month or so and the post count number is way, way, way off. The search function has been broken in one way or another for months...please try to dedicate more resources to fixing it properly.

          You declared the search function fixed way back in June...

          http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post9242852

          ...but here we are in September with a broken search still.

          Thank you kindly.

          -don
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          • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Alaister View Post

            Hi Don,

            The search functionality became really messy after we moved all the databases to Amazon. We're going to completely rewrite the database storing all the posts and threads and then rebuild the search functionality on top of this.

            This will take some time however I will keep everyone in the loop as to the progress and when we expect to have it all fixed.
            Hello Alaister,

            Any progress on the rewrite and rebuild?

            The current search function (find posts by user) is not going back to anywhere near where it should when it works and today it is not showing my most recent posts either. Today I am only getting results from July 10 - Sept 28.

            Cheers

            -don
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  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    It's now November and the find all posts by user search function is still broken. One way or another it's been broken for the past 6 months. C'mon, man! Can't you Freelancer folks devote some resources to fixing the search function properly?

    Cheers

    -don
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