# How to search



## Jux (Aug 6, 2010)

How to search the forums here?


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## Umbran (Aug 6, 2010)

Search is a resource-intensive activity, so it is reserved to folks who have purchased Community Supporter accounts.

You might get some help from an EN Worlder who has such an account, if you describe what it is you're looking for.

Alternatively, you can use Google: type "site:enworld.org _searchterm_" into Google to check what they've found here.


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## Jux (Aug 11, 2010)

Thanks for clarification, but I must say, that this is utterly stupid rule.

Inability to search causes post duplications.


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## Morrus (Aug 11, 2010)

It may well do. But ability to search results in no threads at all as the server explodes.

This, I feel, makes me not quite so "utterly stupid".


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## IronWolf (Aug 11, 2010)

Jux said:


> Thanks for clarification, but I must say, that this is utterly stupid rule.
> 
> Inability to search causes post duplications.




Search is extremely resource intensive for larger boards like EN World, so it only makes sense to limit the search function to those that help support the site.

And as Umbran noted, using the google trick you can often find what you are looking for without putting undo strain on server resources.


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## Umbran (Aug 11, 2010)

Jux said:


> Thanks for clarification, but I must say, that this is utterly stupid rule.




You haven't seen what happens when we don't use that rule.  

Search is _extremely_ expensive, computationally speaking.  By quirk of economics, we are somewhat underpowered for the complexity of the site, size of the database, and sophistication of features we offer, compared to sites backed by major commercial concerns.  Historically, when everyone's using search, the server slows to a crawl from the workload.



> Inability to search causes post duplications.




That's more of a feature than you think.  While having seventeen discussions of the same thing in a week isn't useful, having someone not find a topic from a year ago and post about it new isn't a problem, as it's basically a new conversation, and there'll be new news and new ideas in it.


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## Jux (Aug 12, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Alternatively, you can use Google: type "site:enworld.org _searchterm_" into Google to check what they've found here.




Ok, during my rage mode, I did not notice that line here. It will do, but wouldn't it be great, if such a google search form would be provided for folks that have not donated, instead of suggesting them to double post?


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## jonesy (Aug 12, 2010)

Jux said:


> ...wouldn't it be great, if such a google search form would be provided for folks that have not donated...?



Hmm. It is. Unless you're in a country that bans Google.


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## RangerWickett (Aug 12, 2010)

jonesy said:


> Hmm. It is. Unless you're in a country that bans Google.




*gasp*

What country would be so foolish, so bold?!


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## jonesy (Aug 12, 2010)

RangerWickett said:


> What country would be so foolish, so bold?!



Well, Turkey and Pakistan. Although, the former doesn't actually enforce the ban and latter is an unintentioned side-effect of them banning YouTube.

Edit: umm, dang, I got them completely backwards. Turkey is the one which banned YouTube and in the process banned Google too. Pakistan is the one doesn't enforce its own ban.

Edit to edit: It's a good thing I'm not a newspaper journalist. =)


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## Umbran (Aug 12, 2010)

Jux said:


> It will do, but wouldn't it be great, if such a google search form would be provided for folks that have not donated, instead of suggesting them to double post?




It would be great - if most modern browsers didn't already provide a search box for you in the upper right hand corner.  As it is, it would be more redundant than great.


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## jeffh (Aug 18, 2010)

Umbran said:


> You haven't seen what happens when we don't use that rule.
> 
> Search is _extremely_ expensive, computationally speaking.  By quirk of economics, we are somewhat underpowered for the complexity of the site, size of the database, and sophistication of features we offer, compared to sites backed by major commercial concerns.  Historically, when everyone's using search, the server slows to a crawl from the workload.



Unlike the OP, I _have_ seen this and understand and accept search being limited to community supporters. However, it does raise the question of why search is so flaky for those of us who _do_ pay for (among other things) access to that functionality.

I can't remember the last time I had a search for anything other than all posts by a particular user turned up anything but an error message. (And even those searches only give me the most recent 200 posts, which in many cases is a far cry from all of them). Is this being worked on? Is there a known workaround (apart from Google)? I'd really appreciate having this functionality actually working well, which it hasn't been for quite some time. This was one of the things I was hoping it would be possible to improve once things moved to a subscription model.


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## Morrus (Aug 18, 2010)

jeffh said:


> I can't remember the last time I had a search for anything other than all posts by a particular user turned up anything but an error message.




You've not mentioned this error to us, so we're unaware of it.  It works fine for me, and the search history shows plenty of poeple are successfully searching.  So no, at present it is not being worked on because this is the first we've heard of it.

What error message are you getting?  I'll try and have a look before I leave for my wedding.


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## the Jester (Aug 19, 2010)

Jux said:


> Thanks for clarification, but I must say, that this is utterly stupid rule.
> 
> Inability to search causes post duplications.




You could always buy ENWorld a new, more powerful server. Shucks, if it was powerful enough, I bet Moruss would enable search for everyone.

Until you decide to foot the bill, though, your best bet is to become a supporter... or else just use Google or the like.


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## jeffh (Aug 19, 2010)

Morrus said:


> You've not mentioned this error to us, so we're unaware of it.  It works fine for me, and the search history shows plenty of poeple are successfully searching.  So no, at present it is not being worked on because this is the first we've heard of it.
> 
> What error message are you getting?  I'll try and have a look before I leave for my wedding.





I can search for particular users' posts, and I can search thread titles (though the latter takes a very long time). However, when I do a search for a keyword and _don't_ choose to search thread titles only, or a tag search, I more often than not get the error:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 35 bytes) in /www/enworld.org/production/htdocs/forum/search.php on line 1011

(The number of bytes in parentheses varies - last time it was 12 - but other than that it's consistent. It's always many orders of magnitude lower than the "allowed memory size", though.)

I assumed y'all were aware of it because, last time I mentioned having such problems, you _were_ aware of it. That was, however, a long time ago. I take it they were thought to be fixed, then? Because for me, they've had better and worse stretches but never gone away entirely.

Oh, and congratulations! This is not _that_ big a deal and you've obviously got a far more important thing coming up. I don't mind at all if this doesn't get looked at for a bit, especially under those sorts of circumstances.



the Jester said:


> You could always buy ENWorld a new, more powerful server. Shucks, if it was powerful enough, I bet Moruss would enable search for everyone.
> 
> Until you decide to foot the bill, though, your best bet is to become a supporter... or else just use Google or the like.




I _am_ a supporter. It not only mentions this in the sidebar of my post, but I even explicitly said so in the post you're responding to. I am therefore footing what Morrus has determined is my fair share of the bill. If that amount is too low, Morrus should raise it (he could double it and I, for one, would happily stay on board).

Suggesting the complaint is not legitimate unless I foot the entire bill myself is a strawman I probably shouldn't be dignifying with even this response, and I think you realize that.


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## Holy Bovine (Aug 19, 2010)

jeffh said:


> I _am_ a supporter. It not only mentions this in the sidebar of my post, but I even explicitly said so in the post you're responding to. I am therefore footing what Morrus has determined is my fair share of the bill. If that amount is too low, Morrus should raise it (he could double it and I, for one, would happily stay on board).
> 
> Suggesting the complaint is not legitimate unless I foot the entire bill myself is a strawman I probably shouldn't be dignifying with even this response, and I think you realize that.




You do realize Jester was talking to Jux, right?


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## the Jester (Aug 19, 2010)

jeffh said:


> I _am_ a supporter. ... Suggesting the complaint is not legitimate unless I foot the entire bill myself is a strawman I probably shouldn't be dignifying with even this response, and I think you realize that.




You are absolutely right, except that I was responding to someone else.


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## jeffh (Aug 19, 2010)

the Jester said:


> You are absolutely right, except that I was responding to someone else.





My bad.


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## IronWolf (Aug 19, 2010)

jeffh said:


> I can search for particular users' posts, and I can search thread titles (though the latter takes a very long time). However, when I do a search for a keyword and _don't_ choose to search thread titles only, or a tag search, I more often than not get the error:
> 
> Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 35 bytes) in /www/enworld.org/production/htdocs/forum/search.php on line 1011
> 
> (The number of bytes in parentheses varies - last time it was 12 - but other than that it's consistent. It's always many orders of magnitude lower than the "allowed memory size", though.)




Looking in from the outside, it looks like some of the less confined searches are exceeding the max memory limit set in the PHP configuration.  In the above case the search you made likely already hit 64MB of memory usage and was trying to allocate *another* 35 bytes above and beyond that causing the error.


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## coyote6 (Aug 19, 2010)

Were you searching every forum? 

The reason I ask is that I've used Search a bit in the past, and never hit that error. I usually know roughly what forum the post was in, or what group of forums it might've been in, so I limit the search to just those forums. That might be enough to keep my searches below the limit you're hitting. You can Ctrl select multiple non-adjacent forums from the list, IIRC, which should let you avoid stuff like the Hosted forums or Off Topic or whatever -- places unrelated to what you're searching for.

OTOH, I haven't used search much recently, so maybe it's a recent change or I just didn't run into it.


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## Deset Gled (Aug 21, 2010)

sansoftonline01 said:


> *...[/url]*



*

Reported as spam.*


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