Develop Bugs

Fundamental Search Issues?

Is there any reason why neither a keyword or tag search for "[ROM]" (without quotes) yields zero results?
If I want to find a list of all [ROM] titled/tagged threads to look at the range of ROM's available; what is the best way to go about it?
Am I being a noob or is there a fundamental search flaw?

Well...
I can think in 3 search criteria:
1. Go to the upgrading section of your device
2. use Wiki to find all cooked and shiped ROM´s
3. Use the XDA fttp

Windza said:
Is there any reason why neither a keyword or tag search for "[ROM]" (without quotes) yields zero results?
If I want to find a list of all [ROM] titled/tagged threads to look at the range of ROM's available; what is the best way to go about it?
Am I being a noob or is there a fundamental search flaw?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A few months back I actually dug through the advanced search code in vBulletin (trust me, it's terrible code). I may be mistaken, but I believe that it doesn't allow keywords of 3 or less letters unless there's extra parameters (like boolean operators and more keywords). Don't hold me on that, I'd have to look again to be sure.
One of these days if I remember, I'll go hunting through the code again to confirm that and update the wiki page I wrote (link is in my signature) with the answer to this.

mikechannon said:
Indeed words of less than 4 letters will not search. BUT if you click on advanced searh then choose search using Google at the top, it will search for 3 letter words.
Or you could use this:
Search XDA-Devs Forums or Wiki
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Click to collapse
The problem with using google in this case is that it's not context aware of the forum threads. I think he's looking to see a large list of the different roms. With google, he's going to get search results including several different pages per rom and no way to sort the results. It would be faster to just click next through each page of the rom dev forum for the selected phone...which is almost as good as getting the intended search results from searching for [ROM]....
It makes me wonder how hard it would be to patch the issue in vBulletin and get better search results than Google can produce.

speed_pour said:
It makes me wonder how hard it would be to patch the issue in vBulletin and get better search results than Google can produce.
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If everybody can do the same thing as google did, google will not be google, I mean, the #1 internet company in the world.
I am just wondering that can anybody produce a code like the search link on this page.[Edit: I want to add several more sites as searching range to that one, can you figure it out?]

wg5566 said:
If everybody can do the same thing as google did, google will not be google, I mean, the #1 internet company in the world.
I am just wondering that can anybody produce a code like the search link on this page.[Edit: I want to add several more sites as searching range to that one, can you figure it out?]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't talking about producing a better search engine, only fixing the known bugs. Things like the incorrect handling of sorting by relevancy (as detailed in the wiki page I wrote), the 4+ letter requirement on search terms, and maybe even giving it grouping capability. The first two aren't even hard to change, though the 4+ letter requirement is performance based, so it might be good to re-engineer some stuff. The grouping is trickier, but not even remotely an expert-level task (though it too has some performance implications).
Google doesn't have the know-how to separate or understand the context of searching only a certain group (or set of groups). It doesn't know how to search ONLY the topic and not the text body (or vice versa), etc. All of that data is separate and stuck in the database in different fields, which makes it WAY easier to search. We can have better search results than google because we have better access to the data, we just have to work through vBulletin's very simple code.

Yes agree. It is a shame that I found sometimes (or many times?) using the integrated search engine is not as good as just using 'search site by google'.
In my opinion, the 4letter+ issue is not as important as others. It is only reasonable to set such a reqirement and in most cases we don't need to search a word with less than 4 letters.
But I feel like lucky that I asked my question to the right person. Would you please spend a little time on help some clue for the question in my last post? Thanks in advance.
It will be wonderful if we can set google to search on limited range only like: xda-devs, ppcgeeks, msdn, pda4x, ppcfreeware, etc.

wg5566 said:
Yes agree. It is a shame that I found sometimes (or many times?) using the integrated search engine is not as good as just using 'search site by google'.
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I think it depends on what is being searched for. Most RL friends know me for instantly hitting google to search on almost anything, but for this site I actually do use the integrated search most of the time. A well formed search here is still better than most results on google unless you need to use some pretty advanced searches that only Google can understand.
wg5566 said:
In my opinion, the 4letter+ issue is not as important as others. It is only reasonable to set such a reqirement and in most cases we don't need to search a word with less than 4 letters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GPS, WM6, SIM, GSM, SD, ROM, CAB
Just to name a few....
wg5566 said:
But I feel like lucky that I asked my question to the right person. Would you please spend a little time on help some clue for the question in my last post? Thanks in advance.
It will be wonderful if we can set google to search on limited range only like: xda-devs, ppcgeeks, msdn, pda4x, ppcfreeware, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm about to pick on you just a bit...
Did you consider searching Google for 'Google Custom Search'? Fourth result down there's a step-by-step guide that explains it easily and also pushes the value of it when combined with AdSense. This is a search thread after all
I admit, I'm glad to have stumbled onto setting up that feature with adsense because I would actually like to use it just for my own site I'm setting up shortly.

Thanks a lot, I got it.
One more noob question(web design is apparently not my area), can I set it in a local page like this, bcz I don't own a website myself? [Edit: Never Mind, Got It!]
Later on after setup your site, pls pm me a link.
Tx.
Edit: Just tried to create my own search engine, take a look here
Edit: Wonderful! Yeah! So happy today.

Windza said:
Is there any reason why neither a keyword or tag search for "[ROM]" (without quotes) yields zero results?
If I want to find a list of all [ROM] titled/tagged threads to look at the range of ROM's available; what is the best way to go about it?
Am I being a noob or is there a fundamental search flaw?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It yields zero results because the word is too short.

Searching for ROM version #s
I just ran into a search problem myself. I was searching for radio version 1.14.25.05. The google search took me to a long thread, so I thought I'd just search for "1.14.25.05". It didn't return any results, so I assumed this version wasn't there. It wasn't until I asked for help on a new thread that I was embarrassed by someone who told me it was on post #2. I had incorrectly trusted search. With version #s being so important to what xda-developers is all about, having a robust thread search is critical. Any thoughts on possible improvements? Are there settings in this software that could be changed?
John

Searching for a 3-letter result... "YES" we can
So basically, everyone says to use "search" on XDA devs to look for answers for your questions, but nobody says "you should use google search if any word you're looking for is three letters or less"..... like SMS.
It's frustrating, following the rules, being told to follow the rules, then finding out following the rules didn't work anyways.
Fixing this nonsense would be great. Even removing the 'built-in forum search' entirely....? just a thought.
Apart from that, thanks for hosting an amazing site, full of talented, hard-working people and their efforts... if you can find them hehe

pimpmydragon said:
So basically, everyone says to use "search" on XDA devs to look for answers for your questions, but nobody says "you should use google search if any word you're looking for is three letters or less"..... like SMS.
It's frustrating, following the rules, being told to follow the rules, then finding out following the rules didn't work anyways.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The rule is there to prevent people from asking questions that can be answered by either search engine we use. For a rule to work it needs to be short and to the point, no one will even try to read the rules if every rule is explained in detail.
pimpmydragon said:
Fixing this nonsense would be great. Even removing the 'built-in forum search' entirely....? just a thought.
Apart from that, thanks for hosting an amazing site, full of talented, hard-working people and their efforts... if you can find them hehe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're well aware that the vB search engine isn't perfect but neither is the one from google. That is why we give you the option to use both.
I'm well aware that this can be confusing at times but simply searching for "how to search xda-developers.com?" would have given you this thread wich explains in the first post that you can use google and that we implemented it because the vB search doesn't allow words with less than 4 characters.
Best regards,
Flar
Site admin
p.s. I always use the search in the navbar first I noticed later that my example search string gives really crappy results in the vb search.

Originally Posted by pimpmydragon
Apart from that, thanks for hosting an amazing site, full of talented, hard-working people and their efforts... if you can find them hehe
we are only a PM away.

Flar said:
The rule is there to prevent people from asking questions that can be answered by either search engine we use. For a rule to work it needs to be short and to the point, no one will even try to read the rules if every rule is explained in detail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe many users never read site rules. Once we register on any web-site, there always be a rule or a terms-of-use, and people's habit would be just click on 'Agree' without a glance at the content, since they are all similiar.
But we have a way to force new users to learn how to search and view the site. Simply change the rule to: New users can not post within say first 50 online hours after registered. Then they have to view and search first, especially if they came with some question or urgent problem to be solved.I think Vbulletin has the function of online-time statistics.
Just an idea for consideration, I don't know it will be practical or not.

wg5566 said:
I believe many users never read site rules.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Forum Rules announcement has >51,000 views since march... not bad
Dave

Yes, looks like the situation is better. It works especially by continuous remindment everuwhere. What about number of new users since then?
Edit: Remindment like this works, thanks for everybody's effort. A further thought is: If everybody already read it, but still a lot don't follow it. That may be caused by some human nature for urgently need an answer for his question. Noticed MODs' effort like your goodself to execute the rule, it helped.

Sorry i'm not quoting people here, i'm typing this on my phone.
First, the number of people reading the rules is far less than the number of new users, which doesn't even account for the long time users. Not that it matters hugely, the rules only truly matter to people posting, which is realistically isn't too bad.
Regarding the use of two search engines, it can be seen in a bad way, or it can be seen as having two different tools instead of just one. Neither is perfect, neither is better (opinions and experiences may differ), and they can often be used interchangably, but they are not the same and should be used differently.

Min 4 letter search is awful for a tech forum. No idea why such a known forum hasnt found a work around.
Theres no way around how terrible it is. As mentioned before the sheer number of issues that arise with things that start or 3 letters long renders search impotent.
MMS/USB are two major problems Ive had recently and couldnt do a search to find an answer. Of course that results in yet another thread on the topic being created that is probably needless.
Google search isnt forum specific so it too is too cumbersome to be useful.
Orb , MMS ,SMS , USB, APK , API I mean over half the "talk" we use for Phones involves 3 letter acronyms. Not even beginning to mention something like 1.6 , 2.0 when getting spcifics on those 3 letter acronyms.

forum: Sorry, search is temporarily unavailable. Please try again in 10 minutes.

i must be very unlucky but everytime i use the search i got this message:
Sorry, search is temporarily unavailable. Please try again in 10 minutes.
and i gonna sound stupid but where is the seach button within the thread.
because looking an information in a 100+ page thread is not so easy without search
if i cant find it then i guesss a lot of people and newbies won't, then you cant expect people to search before they posts

I dont see any announcements regarding the search feature being disabled, but it'd be my best guess that either there is some sort of maintenance going on, they may have disabled the search temporarily (it is a huge bandwidth killer), or least likely....a software error.
Either way, I am sure someone is aware......I'd just be patient.
(fwiw, I need the search feature too....but I can live with what I need the answer for....and I don't want to use any other forum but this one)

IIRC it's when the servers are getting overloaded, the search automatically gets disabled. This ensures the rest of the site doesn't go down.
If not, it might just be maintenance...
The google search will still be operational unless google goes down

silenius said:
looking an information in a 100+ page thread is not so easy without search
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How right you are!
silenius said:
where is the seach button within the thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not noticed the "search this thread" button being unavailable before. Maybe you've had a different experience to me. On both the new and classic styles there's a "search this thread" button at the top of the first post on the page you're viewing. If it's not there for you then I bow out and leave it to someone who knows why to give you a better answer.

[Q] This is my request

Try to replace the search engine here to perhaps some kind of google search which would be a lot more intelligent and easier to use. ?
Thanks

Yup, we're working on search. It's not easy creating a system that can allow for dozens of searches per second, scanning 10+ million posts.

svetius said:
Yup, we're working on search. It's not easy creating a system that can allow for dozens of searches per second, scanning 10+ million posts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will the new search, when it's available, use google by default so that we can search as often as we like? While I understand the current 30 second limit it can be frustrating sometimes. (I sometimes change my mind about the search criteria and have to wait, or decide to view posts instead of threads, and have to wait, and the list goes on!)

http://www.google.com/cse/
Google Custom Search Engine

crachel said:
http://www.google.com/cse/
Google Custom Search Engine
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The box to the right of "Device by OS or Manufacturer" uses something like that (it might actually be cse )

pulser_g2 said:
The box to the right of "Device by OS or Manufacturer" uses something like that (it might actually be cse )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the one shortcoming of CSE, or actually its more a vBulletin shortcoming, is that there's no good way to search anywhere but the entire site.
Since each thread is simply given an ID, and the section is indistinguishable from the URL, you can't tailor the results to just search, for instance, "Nexus One Android Development". At least I haven't figured out a way yet.

crachel said:
Yeah, the one shortcoming of CSE, or actually its more a vBulletin shortcoming, is that there's no good way to search anywhere but the entire site.
Since each thread is simply given an ID, and the section is indistinguishable from the URL, you can't tailor the results to just search, for instance, "Nexus One Android Development". At least I haven't figured out a way yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know of ways to do this, as do the admins

Easy way to foster searching!!!

- New user comes on here and does a search, but gets no results or not what they're looking for.
- They do another search.
- "Sorry. You must wait 25 seconds."
What do you think will happen?
They go and create yet another redundant pointless thread.
Reducing this time limit by at least 15 seconds would go a LONG ways to helping people search more. I know personally I always get extremely frustrated when I search for something and then have to wait. If we want people to search more, why make it so frustrating?

Welcome to the ADHD generation. Is it hard for people to search using Google with an XDA modifier or doesn't it occur to people to try?
Genuinely interested!

DirkGently1 said:
Welcome to the ADHD generation. Is it hard for people to search using Google with an XDA modifier
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. Most people have no idea what that is.

Is it even possible to look through all of the returned search results in 25 seconds? You'd have to be a record breaking speed reader
I suppose if someone enters the search term with a typo and then tries again it might be within the 25 second window.

Regularly when I make a search I click on the wrong option (display thread/post or else) and I'm stuck with that 30 seconds limit and this is really annoying. What's the reason for this limit? Avoid overwhelming servers?

DirkGently1 said:
Is it even possible to look through all of the returned search results in 25 seconds? You'd have to be a record breaking speed reader
I suppose if someone enters the search term with a typo and then tries again it might be within the 25 second window.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, exactly. Typo, or my search term was too specific, so I get 0 results.
missparker76 said:
Regularly when I make a search I click on the wrong option (display thread/post or else) and I'm stuck with that 30 seconds limit and this is really annoying. What's the reason for this limit? Avoid overwhelming servers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EXACTLY!! I HATE that.
I click one option; it returns 0 results, so I want to broaden my search and... I can't.

I see now why this hasn't been a problem for me. I always start with one or two keywords and, if necessary, get more specific in following searches.
Kinda the other way round

DirkGently1 said:
I see now why this hasn't been a problem for me. I always start with one or two keywords and, if necessary, get more specific in following searches.
Kinda the other way round
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I think most of us do like you. This has nothing to do with the fact that we are stuck by the 30 sec limit.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

With all due respect to seasoned members and searchers, really, it isn't that simple to someone who is new to all of this and seeking knowledge. I really don't understand why there's any time limit on searching whatsoever, that seems very counter-intuitive - and it will absolutely result in needless first posts, as Paul220000 pointed out, especially when you've got an issue on your hands you just don't understand how to fix.

reinbeau said:
With all due respect to seasoned members and searchers, really, it isn't that simple to someone who is new to all of this and seeking knowledge. I really don't understand why there's any time limit on searching whatsoever, that seems very counter-intuitive - and it will absolutely result in needless first posts, as Paul220000 pointed out, especially when you've got an issue on your hands you just don't understand how to fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search is very resource intensive, and to make sure the site remains fast, it is necessary to have some restrictions on it.

pulser_g2 said:
Search is very resource intensive, and to make sure the site remains fast, it is necessary to have some restrictions on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course. But 30 seconds is just too long. It results in a lot of useless threads.
Another thing that would help tremendously is to default the search to the "Search this forum" link. I.E. whatever forum you're in, clicking search will default the "Search in Forum(s)" box to the forum or device you're in, since usually you're looking for device specific information anyway.
Compare these two links to see what I mean:
General search: http://forum.xda-developers.com/search.php
"Search this forum": http://forum.xda-developers.com/search.php?f=556
Notice the second link searches only the Nexus One forums.
For a new person looking for info, it would probably be more beneficial to search for device-specific information rather than the default of searching all 700+ forums.

If the resource drain on xda is really that big a deal on searches, maybe adding that Google Search bar that searches with the xda modifier that a lot of other sites and blogs use would be a workable solution.

Yep but would it still allow to search only in specific forums and threads and not in the whole site?

i went to search something yesterday and it took me over 30seconds to find the search box... frustration had already begun to creep on me... finally i located the 'search this forum' button... using it was easy enough... i typed into the box the words 'recalibrate battery'... i then carefully proofread my search criteria before putting it through, which took about 30seconds by the way... at this point i was getting excited... then it returned just about every thread those words were mentioned in.... more frustration...
i agree the search may or may not be confusing to some people, be too slow, have wait periods, or give you the entire forum just in a different order... but it's not XDA's fault... go to any forum that uses vbulletin and you will have the same issues...

distortedloop said:
If the resource drain on xda is really that big a deal on searches, maybe adding that Google Search bar that searches with the xda modifier that a lot of other sites and blogs use would be a workable solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We are planning on improving the google search for the site.
As others have said at the moment the google search only works on a Site basis, we're looking into getting it on a per-forum basis.
Dave

This forum requires that you wait 20 seconds between searches. Please try again in 20

.
..

What's wrong with it?

Think about your search query perhaps?
I have a throttle limit too on search People who find this an issue are probably not looking at the results generated - remember the options in advanced search, for whole post searching etc

You can also use google, forum search isn't great any way..
For Google:
Search item site:forum.xda-developers.com
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For example:
https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy...418bdb68383d95&biw=1280&bih=719&pf=p&pdl=3000

I only get this when searching inside a thread and not the whole forum; the whole forum search automagicly gets done via Google anyway.
The problem I have, that I guess the original poster is mentioning, is how can I specify to search in a specific thread in Google? I don't think you can which is why the 20 second wait can be a problem?

never had problem with that,
i think because of a huge amount of people connecting to this forum and if there wouldnt be that 20 second waiting time whole forum would be laggy....
my opinion dont punch me...

Percz said:
I only get this when searching inside a thread and not the whole forum; the whole forum search automagicly gets done via Google anyway.
The problem I have, that I guess the original poster is mentioning, is how can I specify to search in a specific thread in Google? I don't think you can which is why the 20 second wait can be a problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You cannot search a thread or subforum via Google. Limitation of how google lets you specify locations to search

..

MuF123 said:
sometimes you can't remember what you want to search.
e.g. you want to find your own post where you mentioned something about "cpu throttling" (just for example).
but you can't remember what words did you use so you search for "cpu downscaling", "cpu underclocking", "cpu overheating", "cpu lower frequency", "cpu heat problem", "cpu throttling" YAY I found it.
and it would take me like 20 seconds in google, but under this limitations it would take like 3 minutes.
this limitation isn't encouraging users to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmvCpR45LKA&t=0m37s , just sayin'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you filtered by only posts from yourself, especially if you knew the thread, it should be quite easy.
It's a balancing act between performance and convenience. Some people hammer it constantly with nonsense. That's why you cannot search for silly stuff like "ROM".

We are working to improve search and something is in the pipelines. I can't give a date yet, but please know we know theres limitations in the current system and have been working to address them in a future rollout.

The search timer has been dropped to 15 seconds. We are within a week or so of having a new (and much improved) search system in place.
Hope that helps!

..

15 seconds is already fast. other forums require you to wait up to a minute before the next search.