UMI Performance

I noticed the search has not updated and isn't picking up and new threads when I use it? Its the same threads everyday although there has been many new ones posted.

Thanks,
Ryan

JT

iTrader: (1)

It does appear to be broken, which we are aware of past issues with this "beta" search engine. I will see what I can find out. Thanks.

UMI Performance

Thanks, I didn't search around to see if the issue was already addressed. Just figured I would post it.

Thanks for looking at it!
Ryan

John in RI

iTrader: (167)

I know you folks know about the search function issues - but now it's completely broken again. It returns nothing even when a generic " CAMARO" search term is used. The results are always the same:

krisb410

iTrader: (9)

I get same response as above

subliminal

iTrader: (1)

I have the same problem

88KARRV6

iTrader: (1)

Yes I can't find anything using the search function at all as of 09/25/07 Returns with "no match found" on any item looked up.
I've just been using the google search bar until it's fixed.

subliminal

iTrader: (1)

Still not working, you guys really need to fix this issue.

Phatfiddler

iTrader: (8)

I am having the same issues as the above posts. The result is always "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

I am using Internet Explorer from work right now and I am logged in. If the rest can post what browser they are using or w/e it may help as well.

JT

iTrader: (1)

I submitted a request to the proper department about this on 9/22 when the issue appeared. I was informed it would be addressed yesterday (9/23). I noticed it still is down, so I resubmitted a request on 9/23 and I'm waiting. Unfortunately there is not much else we can do here. The search functions are handled by a specific department.

It is not a browser issue, or any issue related to the user.

Cadillac

The effectiveness of this forum as a tool for the community of third gen owners is MUCH less with this feature broken. I can't tell you how many times people jump on newbies for asking simple questions with, "You need to do a search, dork!"

Add me to the list of whiners about this being broken. I have to resort to asking questions asked and answered hundreds of times now.

Good Luck, JT.

JDud

Add me to the list of folks irritated by the inability to search...its been at least 4 days that I have been trying to search and keep getting the same reply as quoted above.

dlturner00

Ditto that!

subliminal

iTrader: (1)

Ok this is getting seriously annoying. Is anyone even doing anything? Sure doesnt seem like it. Going on a week now and still the site is f'ed up.

forkvoid

iTrader: (1)

I have never seen a more irreverant bunch of people. It's not like you guys are required to pay a membership fee; thus, the admins don't work for you. Why are you folks being so pushy on the subject? Sure, it sucks, but this site might as well be a service to us. The only ones with any right to complain would be the sponsors, but only because they're pumping money into the site.

Relax. Chill. It'll be alright.

arrowcamaro

iTrader: (2)

How about this. The main thing this place has is its knowledge thats in the archives.... that we cant find because the search is down once again. Before the new people took over Dirk managed to keep the search feature up and running 98% of the time. Now were stuck with fancy colors and no search feature. Seems like priorities are a bit out of whack. I'd be pissed if I paid money to be a sponsor on this site. The site seems to be going belly up IMO.

And before panties get bunched, this is not a shot at JT.

JT

iTrader: (1)

The people who brought you the "fancy colors", and overall forum & website management, are different people from those who work on the search engine that is currently in development. So it is not a priority issue. It would not be wise to put TGO on hold, while we all wait for the search engine to develop, especially when we don't have control over it. That would not be productive. One of the staff is one of the developers for the search.

We have not ran a stock vB search for some time. Up until several months ago, we were running a search hack. After that, we then were running a "beta" search (proof of concept). That beta search is still in development.

It appears a lot of our recent issues stem from our recent server "maintenance" last week. We're fully aware and working on it.

For some of the people who questioned why we just don't revert back to a stock search engine (vB's), the team does not feel that we can revert back to vB's stock search at this time with the activity that our forums have. They feel the issue will shift from no searching, to slow or inaccessible browsing the forums as vB's stock search engine is known to not run well on large forums.

I fully agree and understand the concern here. I'm still trying to do what I can. As I use the search feature daily, you can be certain I'm affected just as much.

arrowcamaro

iTrader: (2)

Fair enough. I'm just reporting what we as the end user's see. Thanks for clearing it up. Now send the "team" an e-mail asking why they are looking at the e-mail and not fixing the search feature haha J/K

Jekyll & Hyde

JT,
There are a lot of people that haven't replied to this post and COMPLETELY understand the frustration that you are having with this setup at this current time. Don't think that everyone is not understanding; we're just quiet.

subliminal

iTrader: (1)

I got a dollar that says if sponsors started pulling off the site because the site wasnt getting as much traffic from it not working right the problem would be fixed in a few hours

dr1

I'm not understanding.. beta features need to be tested on a beta site :P
If theres another thing I dont hate more then anything, its being someone elses unwilling beta tester
How hard would it be to leave **** alone until they can iron out a working replacement?? easier then it would have been to **** up the search feature currently :P

this isnt the only site they now own with a broken search feature either

in case anyone doesnt know, the search feature is responsible for a massive amount of the servers load, if not most of it.. why do you think they tried to nix it all together in favor of google doing all the work

JT

iTrader: (1)

I'm sorry to be blunt, but you aren't exactly correct. They did not try to "nix it all together in favor of google doing all the work". The Google search came under previous ownership and has been here for some time now. It never replaced the built-in forum search for any length of time, only when there was a problem with the built-in search. As well, not all of the other websites even have the Google search engine.

The built-in search has been disabled so that the ops can start to reindex the search and begin to prepare for the new search engine. It is also to help prevent people from believing something is wrong on their end, which many did believe so. Sticky posts, announcements or even mass emails would not have prevented that.

We have not been running a stock vB search engine for some time. When you get as many posts as TGO has, and has much activity as TGO as, you begin to have problems with vB's stock search engine as it's not efficient. This isn't solely an issue with TGO. It's also part of the growing pains.

I'm informed that the search engine was left broken when the website was transferred. The only two options available at the time was the "beta" search that's in development, or the stock vB search. If the stock vB search was used, while we may have a working search, the issues would shift from no searching ability, to an issue of website performance or accessibility.

BTW, not all of the websites have broken search engines. Ls1tech.com is currently running the new search engine that is further in development than the one we were using.

dr1

Trust me im aware, the minute the search was changed over initially, it went from very useful to no reason for existing, with a quick change of a few peices of key code.
All the sudden your specific searches are turning up anything and everything, whatever the database server can spit out to you to keep it from having to search deeper "yes lets just switch a couple of these 'AND's for 'OR's noone will notice"
I dont recall how long that went on for, quite awhile... (wait did it ever stop?) the search feature has been down on a very regular basis so I've lost track

Im not going to have sympathy for their end, yes obviously I come here for free, im not paying anyone for membership to use these boards
sadly my browser is paying someone for my use though, I await the day when adblock software comes with your browser enabled by default, that should start a riot

this all started out as "new ownership means newer and better hardware and yadda yadda everything will kick a$$"
which turned out to mean, stuff will be down alot more, you will get spammed alot more, mr JT will have to try and keep a straight face while he talks about what the IT guys are doing to fix the problems and most likely owners will bite off more then they can chew and services across the board will steadily get worse..
but this is just the cycle of life

dont worry man ill do the criticizing for you, im not going to get fired from my non existant adminstrator position

subliminal

iTrader: (1)

Everyone should just start going to thirdgentech.com that might get their attention.

forkvoid

iTrader: (1)

When did loyalty become such a scarce thing? Do you abandon your car clubs when the going gets tough, too?

IROCThe5.7L

As stated, JT did everything he can do for now. I realize the search is important, but posting here about how the site is going down hill is not going to help matters any and is a waste. TGO has had problems before and always came back better than before. Just give it some time. Things like this take a lot of time.

gearhead0384

iTrader: (7)

I hope it gets up soon.

Because what is the purpose to a forum with out a search???

Kevin

JT

iTrader: (1)

For those who haven't noticed, there is an updated status on the search:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/prob...ch-engine.html

Basically, the projected time frame is hopefully next week to implement the new search engine. The new search engine is currently in use on a production website, with good results thus far.

A search engine would be fairly useless without forum content.

By the way, I'm not dismissing the importance of a search engine. I share the frustration and concern here. It is being addressed.

Thanks.

gearhead0384

iTrader: (7)

Good to hear. The site is and great research and learning tool for myself and so many others. I just want to see it going, and I am greatful for the people who put unknown hours or service and dedication into the site.

Thanks to all of you.

Kevin

chrisholland

Hang in there.

We're on it. We have been.

As JT mentioned and as most of you know, Search functionality built into vBulletin and most forum software, simply doesn't scale on large forums, eventually bringing the whole application to a crawl, yielding a horrible experience for all users, even those not performing searches. JT touched on these issues in this post.

The "beta" search functionality JT mentions in the above post, was a very unique and innovative solution developed a while back, and gave us great insights as to what could be done leveraging similar technology in a better-architected solution.

This "beta" search remained however a very brittle implementation, that eventually broke at a time where we were head-down into development and making significant progress on the newly-architected Search Engine, with its own dedicated hardware.

We're getting close. After herculean development efforts over a grueling timeline followed by much testing, tweaking, fixing, we *just* completed a successful deployment on ls1tech.com, another large forum nearing 7 million posts.

JT has been very patient with us, and we're now coordinating our efforts with him to plan for a trouble-free deployment on TGO.

As with many other disciplines, software development is tough. It takes sweat and ferocious dedication. Even once you believe you've finally solved a problem, no matter how much you architect, test and monitor, unexpected road-blocks *always* come-up, and life as a software engineer becomes a continuous exercise in developing new innovative ways to move that mountain just one inch further.

We're hopeful your patience and our sweat will be rewarded

chrisholland

As JT just announced ... Search is up!

I'm still in mild shock as to how well this went

We'll be keeping an eye on the search engine, usage, and your feedback on JT's announcement thread.

Many many thanks for your patience!

Now get searchin' !@

John in RI

iTrader: (167)

Nice to see it working again !!!!!!

I just tried it once and saw that it returned results.......Now; I'm going to give it a workout for a little while !

chrisholland

*gulp* be gentle

Cadillac

Is it really fixed?

When I search on all posts by "Cadillac" (my typical search so I can follow up with the BS I post) the results are not what I expect.

JT

iTrader: (1)

When I clicked on Find More Posts By Cadillac, which appears under your username, the results appear correct to me. When I use the Advanced Search, and simply request posts by your username, I'm also given results that appear correctly.

Please describe what "results are not what I expect" means. It's a bit vague to me.

Brother Al

JT: I'm still kinda new to TGO but God bless you for the blood, sweat, and tears you put into this. Its been really helpful to me. I finally found out what "WS3" means. Because of all the 3rd Gen owners that gather here and help each other out, countless dollars and injuries have been avoided...LOL. If it wasn't for this site, a bunch of us Third-Gen'rs wouldn't be putting together a new TGO club here in Southern New England..."Any interest in a CT meeting...." North East Forum. This is a great site and things take time. One suggestion for you: Once the search is fully functioning, could you add "Search" to the Garage section? Kind hard to look for everyone's car info there.
-
Thank You, Keep up the good work!

krisb410

iTrader: (9)

When a user posts, in the profile of the poster on the left, there is a icon of a car in a garage. Clicking on this will take you to that posts Garage page.

Brother Al

Yeah I know, but I gotta go and track down those posts first. Thats why it'd be nice to have. I'd like to go to the garage & see what mods different people have instead of checking out every car.

JT

iTrader: (1)

Understood. I would like to possibly replace, or see about an update, for the Garage section as we know it is lacking - especially in comparison to the original Readers Rides TGO once had years ago. We have not put much work into the existing one because there was supposed to be an update from the developers of that plugin.

Brother Al

Thanks!

Cadillac

Nevermind. The search results have changed format. It's been so long since they worked I forgot what they looked like. I am still a bit perplexed by "relevance" of a user search. How can a search result be 77% (or some percentage below 100 and above 0) when it's a simple name match.

FWIW, I prefer the way the search was before.

JT

iTrader: (1)

Please explain. The before search was either completely offline, didn't return the proper results, or didn't display them properly. The search before that was actually limited (perhaps people didn't know that). The original, stock, vBulletin forum search is not an option on a forum this size.

What exactly is better (opinion wise) about the search prior to this one? You're not forced to sorting by Relevance, although it's currently default. You can sort by date.

This search is more powerful and isn't hard on the server (performance wise) as past search engines.

If it's simply the display/format of the results, we might be able to tweak that. Currently, it's still in beta. Constructive, realistic, suggestions are being accepted to improve the search. However, it's difficult to improve or move forward if members don't provide much reason behind their opinion or reasons.

Thanks.

John in RI

iTrader: (167)

I've noticed a few "little things",.............





We are all to busy searching to describe any nuisance "bugs" right now !!!!




Give us a little time to enjoy it before letting us to try & pick it apart !!!!

forkvoid

iTrader: (1)

How about adding 'Return Results by thread' as an option instead of results by post only?

krisb410

iTrader: (9)

Brains

To follow up on a couple things...

I'm adding a couple oft-requested things as we speak. Not sure when I'll be releasing the next version into production, but I'll reply when I do.. These are not yet ready, but here's what's going on right now:

1. Searches that match the title will float to the top of the list
2. More recent posts will float to the top of the list

On the list is "wrapping up" the multiple posts from a thread so you don't see all the repeating lines We'll still show you snips from each post, it'll just look better and be easier to read.

Keep all the comments and bug reports rolling, and thanks!

chrisholland

Yup, big thanks to all for your patience.

The constructive feedback and bug reports have been very helpful and we're head-down into nailing those issues.

Hang in there!

chrisholland

Hey all, you might have noticed that tonight Brains released a first fix to the relevance of results being returned: matches in a post's title are now surfaced up top.

Next thing is to make the more recent posts, for an equal level of keyword matching, surface higher.

There are also bugs we're working on.

Brains

another update release !!

This one fixes a title/body search match bug, results should be even better now if you search for something that either is or even is not in the title. Feedback on this is appreciated though, if it does something you don't expect.

I also added a "rollup" feature for searches where multiple posts in the same thread would appear right in a row. It works best in the "relevancy" mode, since that's the mode where it's most likely to return the groups. Give it a shot, and again I welcome your feedback.

I also updated the highlighting and snippeting -- it now only returns short "snips" of the post that actually matches what you were looking for, and highlights the terms according to the theme you have selected in vBulletin. Should look nicer than just being "bolded".

Guest

Nice work.

Possible to add a date range? There used to be one although crude. It'd be nice to be able to specify dates like... oh say posts made by myself 3 years or older or in 2002 or something along those lines.