Search problems

charlieheard

I’ve been having a problem with the search facility in the forums.

If I use the search dropdown in the header or just above the forum posts to look for some text, it comes back with a blank page (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.html). Occasionally it goes to a PHP page (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/s.php, I think) before going to the blank page.

I tried using the advanced search with the same result. However, if I search for post by a used, I get results :huh:

I’m running WinXP SP” with Opera as my main browser, though I’ve tried it in Maxthon and IE6 as well.

Am I missing something obvious?

cwoodham

Did this just happen recently or have you always had a problem? You've probably seen the thread about searching on MSE forums but here it is again in case it helps:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=325723#post325723

Search items have to be all lower case and at least three letters long.

tigermatt

I often get this when I search the forums. I usually find that if I am more specific with my search terms it fixes it. I think it must be the page timing out because it has returned too many results to display.

Milky_Mocha

I've been experiencing the same problem using the terms 'money manager'. Is that too general? Even when I add the word 'software' it still hangs.

charlieheard

Apologies for not replying to this sooner - I've been out with the dreaded lurgy _pale_

I've not used the search much, so I only noticed it a couple of weeks ago. I put it down to possible website problems and it was only when I tried again a week later and it still happened that I posted. I was looking for the post that introduced me to the "46 best freeware utilities" site, so I put in the text in quotes. I then tried shorter searches, with the same results. Of course, I've just done the same search and it works :wall:

So thanks for the replies, but something seems to have sorted itself out.

economiser

I have trouble searching using Firefox but not with Internet Explorer.

Milky_Mocha

Problem's still there. Quite frustrating. :-(

charlieheard

Milky_Mocha wrote:

Problem's still there. Quite frustrating. :-(

I do seem to remember that too general a search will fail, and rather than coming back with a useful message it would just display a blank page.

Try being more specific and see if that helps

tigermatt

charlieheard wrote:

I do seem to remember that too general a search will fail, and rather than coming back with a useful message it would just display a blank page.

Try being more specific and see if that helps

I think its probably something to do with the search PHP script timing out because it has returned too many results from the database and it "crashes" because it is taking too long to process the search results.

I usually just try more specific, but not too specific because it will return either no or very little results.