# Search database emptied after recent forum meerge?



## Red Spire Press (Sep 11, 2005)

My searches aren't returning any results. Thought I'd give you a heads up.

Also, I posted another thread in Meta yesterday asking for access to modify my products in the review database (as directed on the review page) and didn't receive a response.


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## Mark CMG (Sep 11, 2005)

I gave it a try and it seemed to work fine.  What did you search for?  Maybe I should try searching for the same thing and see if the results are the same?


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## IronWolf (Sep 11, 2005)

Red Spire Press said:
			
		

> My searches aren't returning any results. Thought I'd give you a heads up.




I just did a couple of quick searches ('wizard' and 'rogue') and I received returns from my search.  What were you searching on?


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## Mouseferatu (Sep 11, 2005)

Actually, it's not just him. I'm getting search results from three years ago on some topics, but none more recent, even though I know they exist.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

I just tested search - searching for wizard then ISRP.  No problems either way.  I didn't dump the post index, though I did add too it as the new posts were made into the ISRP forums.


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## Red Spire Press (Sep 11, 2005)

I do regular searches for "dark legacies" (quotes included) to find topics on our games. Up until the merge, I received pages of results. Now I get zero results.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

I got this thread as a result.

:shrug:

I dunno. Rebuilding a post index on a forum this size is a nightmarish proposition.  It may need to be done though after an upgrade to MySQL allows true full text searching (which requires an rebuild).

But remember, last time I rebuilt the thing it took 3 weeks to complete the rebuild.


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## Red Spire Press (Sep 11, 2005)

Well, not to sound antagonistic, but the reason many people purchased ENWorld community supporter accounts was for search access. I'd expect that if search was broken by a forum update, it would be repaired. Granted, new threads will likely be indexed as they are created, but that doesn't help when searching for archived material.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

I don't see how (or why) the merge would have affected the search feature other than to index additional posts.

Anyway, I'm not blowing up and reindexing the boards over the next month because a single search isn't working. Try using different search terms or searching for threads and posts which you made yourself.


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## Mouseferatu (Sep 11, 2005)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> I don't see how (or why) the merge would have affected the search feature other than to index additional posts.
> 
> Anyway, I'm not blowing up and reindexing the boards over the next month because a single search isn't working. Try using different search terms or searching for threads and posts which you made yourself.




Hate to tell you, Spoony, but it's not a single search. I've tried a couple of different terms, and it's not working.

For example, I did a search for "Regdar," and got nothing more recent than early 2003. I know he's been mentioned on the boards since then, since one such mention was in a thread two or three days ago, here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=147059

That's just one example. I've seen the same with multiple other searches.


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## Red Spire Press (Sep 11, 2005)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> I don't see how (or why) the merge would have affected the search feature other than to index additional posts.
> 
> Anyway, I'm not blowing up and reindexing the boards over the next month because a single search isn't working. Try using different search terms or searching for threads and posts which you made yourself.




That's quite an unhelpful attitude. As a community supporter, regular poster, and donator to ENWorld, I would expect a lot more understanding. As Ari has mentioned twice now, this is not an isolated issue.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

Red Spire Press said:
			
		

> That's quite an unhelpful attitude. As a community supporter, regular poster, and donator to ENWorld, I would expect a lot more understanding. As Ari has mentioned twice now, this is not an isolated issue.




So you're saying that you'd prefer to see search taken down entirely for a month while the server rebuilds the index with *no guarantee* that it will help? I can't do that. I have to rebuild the index anyway after the next upgrade to take advantage of some advanced features in the next version of MySQL and vbulletin.  Exactly when that will be I don't know.  I work on ENWorld in my spare time as an unpaid volunteer.


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## Red Spire Press (Sep 11, 2005)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> So you're saying that you'd prefer to see search taken down entirely for a month while the server rebuilds the index with *no guarantee* that it will help? I can't do that. I have to rebuild the index anyway after the next upgrade to take advantage of some advanced features in the next version of MySQL and vbulletin.  Exactly when that will be I don't know.  I work on ENWorld in my spare time as an unpaid volunteer.




No that's not what I'm saying. All I ask is that I not be dismissed out of hand as I was being, and that perhaps someone look into why it happened. Maybe it's reversible.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

The *only* solution to fix a bad post index is to rebuild the thing, a process that took 3 weeks to do the last time it was done -- and not something I want to do unless it becomes absolutely necessary.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Sep 11, 2005)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> I don't see how (or why) the merge would have affected the search feature other than to index additional posts.
> 
> Anyway, I'm not blowing up and reindexing the boards over the next month because a single search isn't working. Try using different search terms or searching for threads and posts which you made yourself.




Hate to break it to ya, Spoony, but the only thign older than today seems to be ISRP stuff.  Which didn't exist on these boards before today.

I did a search for "Dungeon" and found nothing other than ISRP posts since 01-02-03.  I did a search for "Dragon" and got the same date.

Search is fu-bar'ed.  Completely.


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## Mouseferatu (Sep 11, 2005)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> The *only* solution to fix a bad post index is to rebuild the thing, a process that took 3 weeks to do the last time it was done -- and not something I want to do unless it becomes absolutely necessary.




That's perfectly fair, and understandable. And I think if your first reply had been "Man, I'm sorry you're having problems. I'll try to look into why, but I really don't think I can fix it until the next upgrade," then I imagine tha Red Spire would have been fine with it. I know I would have.

My problem--and I believe his, too--is that your first replies were very dismissive, bordering on hostile. Being told "There shouldn't be a problem, go try something else" is neither helpful nor particularly polite.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> Hate to break it to ya, Spoony, but the only thign older than today seems to be ISRP stuff.  Which didn't exist on these boards before today.
> 
> I did a search for "Dungeon" and found nothing other than ISRP posts since 01-02-03.  I did a search for "Dragon" and got the same date.
> 
> Search is fu-bar'ed.  Completely.




I just ran the same searches and experienced no such problem. Check your settings.


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## Mouseferatu (Sep 11, 2005)

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> I just ran the same searches and experienced no such problem. Check your settings.




Tell me which settings should impact which entries Search finds and which it doesn't, and I'll be happy to check them.

I do know that I haven't changed any of my settings in months, and the problem only cropped up today.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Sep 11, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> I did a search for "Dungeon" and found nothing other than ISRP posts since 01-02-03.  I did a search for "Dragon" and got the same date.




I just did both of those searches and found huge amounts of hits...so many that I didn't feel like scrolling to find old ones.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> That's perfectly fair, and understandable. And I think if your first reply had been "Man, I'm sorry you're having problems. I'll try to look into why, but I really don't think I can fix it until the next upgrade," then I imagine tha Red Spire would have been fine with it. I know I would have.
> 
> My problem--and I believe his, too--is that your first replies were very dismissive, bordering on hostile. Being told "There shouldn't be a problem, go try something else" is neither helpful nor particularly polite.




If you want to read things into my responses that aren't there, go right ahead. It's really not my problem. After over 3000 posts I would hope you would have learned that messageboards and email do not and cannot convey tone of voice, but if you haven't and would prefer to view the world as somehow out to get you, that again isn't my problem.

I will look into this and try to figure out what is going on. If I can, that's great. If not, I'll see if it corrects after rebuilding this index after the next upgrade.

Now since this thread has devolved into a bash the tech admin thread, I'm closing it.


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## Dinkeldog (Sep 11, 2005)

I'm going to leave this closed for right now.  '

Spoony, thanks for looking into this.


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## Michael Morris (Sep 11, 2005)

Final note:

I did some further searches last night trying to track down some problems.  Some (Dragon, Dungeon, Regdar) turned up plenty of results even up until now, others (Dark Legacies) turned up no results last night but turned up several this morning that it missed last night.  This is possibly due to a caching issue with MySQL.  If this is true the best course of action is to do nothing and let MySQL sort itself out.

So let's give this a week and see where we are. By then the MySQL cache should be up to speed with the massive influx of posts.

At that point I need to upgrade vbulletin itself to 3.0.9 -- this is likely the final upgrade before switching to 3.5.  As part of that upgrade I'm going to try to allow all the templates revert that I can in order to fix the javascript issues we've had with Firefox.

After that MySQL gets upgraded, followed by PHP, and then the installation of turckmmcache ).  Each of these installations will be a week apart so that performance can be assessed and bugs swatted before additional complications are introduced.


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