Forum search problem? - About xda-developers.com

Hello!
In the past few days (might be since the new forum is online, haven't been here for a while), the search function is acting strangely. For example, do a search for "ssa". It doesn't return anything, but I knew it was mentioned in at least one thread - and there it is, on page 9 of this thread. "Search this thread" doesn't find it either.
Is there some known problem with the forum? I would have searched, but...
Oh, and, erm, another nice one: search for "xda" and see a friendly message saying "Sorry - no matches"...

Search function doesn't work for words less than four letters long.
Try Googling with xda-developers as one of the search criteria. Also try Google's advanced search option; it has a Field for searching only a particular website. Just enter forum.xda-developers.com and go....
Also, don't forget that with Google you can search for posts by a particular user by including the user name as one of the search words.
Hope that helps.

I've been using:
site:forum.xda-developers.com search query
in google.. however the inbuilt vbb has some nice features. If the server can hack it, can we set the min length to 3 and rebuild the index please?

partly covered
please note that the search dialog box (after "New Posts" is clicked) is partly covered by the advertisement.

Hello,
I don't know how to set up mms service for my mini s with wm6.
I can't search for mms or wm6 or anything else.
You should disable search in your forums completely, it's not worth it with this restrictions.
It's the first time xda-developers were not able to help me, just because stupid admins are EVEN NOT ABLE LET THE USER BE WARNED that 3-letter-searching is not working!!! THAT'S HALF A YEAR NOW! ARE YOU DEAD???

Related

Problems with searching

Hi,
Are there still issues with searching this forum with search terms less than 3 characters as existed before?
I have tried doing the following search in the advanced search:
8GB SD
Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
I have a hard time believing that is the case.
This isnt the first time the search is making life difficult. Is there also a way of defaulting the search to ALL TERMS?
thanks
I find searching using Google advanced search is the best way to find info on this forum.
Just type in what you're looking for in the advanced search page and get it to look in this forum.
Hope you understand how I've worded it. Its not as difficult as I make it appear.
Hope this is of use.
To tell you the truth... the whole search function leaves a lot to be desired.
The stalwarts of this forum are constantly critesizing the newbies for not using the search function but the hits it returns are as good as useless. I try repeated variations of my searches and cannot find a single relevant post within the first 20.
Maybe moderators should mention the Goolge option as bieng the best way to find info.
Thanks for your confirmation guys... I was hoping the answer wasn't going to involve google search and that the internal search mechanism would be better.
Cheers!

request to forum mods

Hello there,
i've a request, or suggestion:
could you separate all the "NEW COOK, NEW MOD, NEW ROM" and all that kind of posts into a separate new forum called something like "artemis kitchen"?
because when it comes to use the search function, for example for "sms notification" 95% of the results are that kind of posts, which aren't talking about the problem I search, but just listing their features.
it's like searching technic information on google and getting as result the amazon.com webpage selling books which listed their index there.
if we could separate this posts somewhere else, users could filter their search option to exlude that forums from their search, thus getting much more accurate search results.
cheers
hmmm...
bump?

Why won't the search work on this site?

I've just been reading a thread in this forum titled 'Car kit issues with WM6' I read it and decided to do a search for similar threads by using the 'search this forum' text box. I typed in "car kit" (without the inverted commas) and it returned no results even though a thread exists with my search query in its title. I also tried the advanced search and selected 'search titles only' to no avail.
No wonder noobs get shot down in flames or am i missing something???
I'm only guessing, but it may just ignore search terms with 3 letter words or less. Many forums do this to stop the inevitable lag and problems when someone searches for "a" in an attempt to slow the forum down, which it does.
There are many people out there who run meaningless searches on forums to eat bandwidth or grind it to a halt, this is one of many methods to stop it.
I've got the admin's attention on this problem. Thanks.
Meanwhile, if you want to do a search, you can try using google and use the 'site:' feature. Example, if you want to search 'car kit', type this
"car kit" site:xda-developers.com
UPDATE:
It seems that it is known that the site can't do search on 4 letters or less words. Use one of these
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=304582

3 letter word search

I know this has been covered before and the answer was to use Google search. The problem I have with the solution is that it is overly broad.
If I want to search a particular forum only for a 3-letter word, is there a way to do it? For example, how do I search for the term, 'GPS' only in the Kaiser ROM development forum?
If I enter 'Kaiser' and 'GPS', I get all sorts of results that I don't want.
Also, may I suggest that if a user enters a search term with only 3 characters, the forum presents a message why it will not search, rather than the generic 'no reuslts found'?
Thanks.

Search is broken

I have a post on this forum: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1714
It fell off the first page so, to find it, I entered my screen name into the 'search this forum' box. It returned nothing and brought me to an advance screen.
I then entered my user name into the search box on the advanced form labeled "SEARCH BY USER NAME".
Again, no results found.
Search isn't broken.Change the search term to something more general and try again...
POTATO!!!!
Right now, I keep seeing a cat reading a book when I try to search... :silly:
Prawesome said:
Search isn't broken.Change the search term to something more general and try again...
POTATO!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So when trying to find posts with my name in them, I should search for "General Synpax"? I was unaware of this promotion; I'm flattered.
The real problem is that the author field isn't included when the search is run, and it should be.
Really, why even bother having a site search functionality if it's going to be this bad. Just use Google.
synpax said:
So when trying to find posts with my name in them, I should search for "General Synpax"? I was unaware of this promotion; I'm flattered.
The real problem is that the author field isn't included when the search is run, and it should be.
Really, why even bother having a site search functionality if it's going to be this bad. Just use Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can search by author in Advanced Search.
synpax said:
So when trying to find posts with my name in them, I should search for "General Synpax"? I was unaware of this promotion; I'm flattered.
The real problem is that the author field isn't included when the search is run, and it should be.
Really, why even bother having a site search functionality if it's going to be this bad. Just use Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is by design - the vast majority of users want to search for keywords. If a user happens to share username with a keyword, they don't want to be inundated with their mindless musings in off topic...
If you want to find a post by a specific user, just hit the little cog for advanced search, where you can search based on username.
XDA has 4.6 million users, and 21 million posts, so search needs to be a little bit more specific to ensure that you can actually find things.
To find your own posts or threads, use the link to your own profile There's a button there to show all your posts and/or threads.
pulser_g2 said:
This is by design - the vast majority of users want to search for keywords. If a user happens to share username with a keyword, they don't want to be inundated with their mindless musings in off topic...
If you want to find a post by a specific user, just hit the little cog for advanced search, where you can search based on username.
XDA has 4.6 million users, and 21 million posts, so search needs to be a little bit more specific to ensure that you can actually find things.
To find your own posts or threads, use the link to your own profile There's a button there to show all your posts and/or threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your answer.
As a web developer myself, we recently had this same issue come up. We shifted all the search to Bing. This both got us better results and eliminated one target for a DDoS attack.
I tried searching earlier today for: Zenithink (the brand name of my tablet), and didn't get any hits. At the time of this post there did seem to be a problem with the search, but it seems to be working now.
k.
Also, keep in mind that search results can be delayed up to 10 minutes:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/faq.php?faq=searchlight_search#faq_recent
Hi all. I would like to ask something please if any one else have the same expierence:
When I search something and I get some results, I have a problem when i chooose the link (Thread) .... I dont see the thread that i have clicked on, but I am lead to a different page...
Can anyone help me?
Thank you in advanced
It happens with me too.
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