Issues With The Forum's Search Engine

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Hi Everyone..

I don't know if anyone have noticed, But i just discovered that the forum's search engine --

is not working properly as it should.
I tried to search for a topic some minutes ago, but it didn't bring up any result, but rather, it brought up an error page(like in the screenshot below) after page loaded for more than 1 minute.

THE ISSUE - My Observation
When you try searching for posts, using just one word or a very short sentence like--
for example--
Bitcoin
Bitcoin post
Bitcointalk Supernotifier V2
The search engine brings up results normally as it should.

BUT

When you try searching for posts, using a long sentence like --
for example--
Every posts on Bitcointalk makes Bitcoin price go up
what will make you leave the forum
who are those that started this forum with satoshi
The search returns an error 524 page like in the screenshot below


Though not every long sentence put into the search bar brings up the above error page, most of them return a "Not Found" page, others return a search result normally, but others, like the ones i listed as example brings up the error 524 page ...

what do you think could be the reason for this, is it some thing related to wordings?

[1715491710]

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[DdmrDdmr]

I never use the plain Search function, but rather the advanced one. I’ve sometimes encountered the error you mention, and what I generally do, as a better practice, is to delimit the timeframe (message age) for the results to say 2, 100, 300, 600 or 900 days. Unless you really need to check all the forum’s posting history, delimiting the timeframe will do wonders to get the engine not timing out.

[PX-Z]

I will just call it search function than a search engine.

Anyway, i guess this is related to forum search query as the server cannot get the data from the search keywords until it timeout and shows error from cloudflare.

Solutions i think are:
- for easy fix, limit the characters in the search box
- limit the search result and show an error message that there's no result found so it wont timeout just like what cloudflare show.
- enhance the search query (idk how to do it)

This is just my idea, im no expert as im just currently learning web programming.

[Despairo]

Why you're not search using google? it has been mentioned on the top pages.

Google Search

Google search is recommended. It is often more accurate, and searches through the forum's own search engine are rate-limited. Note that Google does not search non-public sections (eg. Investigations).

To be honest forum search is suck if you search with long contents/words, since it will bring not accurate result or error.

I think the forum search using "match any words" so if you search with so many words, the forum should show any posts with any words you searched, even the truth is you either see few posts or error.

[Lucius]

I can also confirm that I had problems with the forum search engine before, but that's why I simply started using external search engines that are much more efficient and fast. It is important to use the keyword "bitcointalk" in addition to what we are looking for, along with of course some other keywords if we know in which board what we are looking for could be found.

When you try searching for posts, using a long sentence like --
for example--
Every posts on Bitcointalk makes Bitcoin price go up

I confirm that I get error 524 when I search the sentence mentioned above.

[mk4]

Yea, outside the errors and bad results, prevent all the hassle and just use Google. It's faster anyway, and you can use refined web searches.

Code:

site:bitcointalk.org what is "crypto" -doge

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

[jackg]

500-600 errors are server errors and its because the server database is taking on too much load from one job.

This is likely because it's searching for individual words, subsets of words and then the whole phrase. I don't think the Google search part is accurate for that either (it might find a word that's most mentioned and return that for example as higher results and then you'll be doing a lot more searching doing that).

I think you're better off searching for a whole phrase or splitting the phrase up into one or two more concise words (and then adding a time limit too if you can).

[JeromeTash]

The other problem is you are just searching using full sentences. You might wanna try and use only keywords, maybe.

Even alternatives line Ninjastic.space can be helpful and a little quicker, but not with such sentences that you used

[Radja Rimba]

Here I just try to provide an alternative solution for you.

I have read in several places before, there are some features that you can use search for specific posts such as using alternative search options such as the Search feature or the ninjastic.space tool. In my opinion, the archive site ninjastic.space works much faster to find the specific word you are looking for than the forum search feature.

[NotATether]

Don't put too many words inside the search query. That will literally kill the PHP search powering it.

I was (and am) still toying around with the idea of indexing all Bitcointalk topics, with a separate ElasticSearch engine. But I have much less compute power at my disposal thanks to the great crypto crash, so I'm thinking about ommiting some very big or tedious boards - Altcoins (most coins posted there are defunct anyway), and all Local language boards.

That should leave me enough space so that I do not exhaust my 2TB free disk space, and use a small amount of memory running as well.

[Stalker22]

I was (and am) still toying around with the idea of indexing all Bitcointalk topics, with a separate ElasticSearch engine.
~

The problem is that posts can be edited and content changed at any time, so you would have to reindex the content on a regular basis in order to maintain the most recent version. I do not know if this is even possible and it would probably require a lot of processing power and a lot of bandwidth. That is why third-party tools, like Ninjastic.space, are good for archiving posts, but they cannot fully replace forum search since their database is out of date.

EpochTalk will probably handle this issue differently, so perhaps we just have to wait for a new version of the forum software (if that ever happens).

[tranthidung]

To be honest forum search is suck if you search with long contents/words, since it will bring not accurate result or error.

Do you know even Google has limits on total words in a search query?

Basically, when you are searching for something, you must have clear mind on what you're looking for. You must have keywords for your search. Keywords help you to narrow down search results and give you more relevant results.

If you don't know what keywords to use, that means you don't actually know what you are looking for.

[Muhammad Shoaib]

Well i don't know about whag you are talking about but in my case i always go through cetagories to post and my regular visitsare bookmarked and I'm happy with it.

The 502, 504 Errors are The connection establishment errors.

Remember Forum Server never goes down

[Benkbeny]

I don't think this fault is from Forum but rather your network provider.
Be sure your network signal is in good order and try again. Most cases I encounter such error on Google search as a result of poor signal.