Issues when searching topics

hey guys! sometimes the search topics feature times out (says something like "gateway time out"), especially in certain threads, such as the glamourcz girls thread. i typed in "jana" to find all the posts in that thread for her and it never works. other (longer) names displayed results so i thought maybe there had to be minimum # of letters but i went to another thread and typed in the same name and results displayed...any ideas why this problem would occur in certain thread(s)? i hate to annoy people by requesting something that i know is already in the thread but the search is not working there. how to report?

ps i tried in IE and Firefox

pss THIS IS GREATEST FORUM EVER

When a topic reaches around 300 pages, (exact number unknown, seem to depend on what has been posted), the search will time out due to the fact there is not enough memory available.
Problem has been brought to the site owners attention on several occations.
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svinto wrote:

thank you svinto for your reply. it still seems odd because when i type in other models names in that thread the results come up fine but when i type in jana it times out. just a glitch i suppose? thx again

I've looked a bit closer and it's really odd.
That topic seem to be a bit hostile to the name Jana.
If you use the ordinary forum search, set to show posts, there will be 2200+ matches.
Not very practical.
But if you instead type in "jana AND glamour.cz", set to show posts, you will get 30+ hits, which is manageable.
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svinto wrote:
Why exactly is this? It is odd because if I run a site-wise FP search for model X, model X will be found in those long threads (e.g. sveindoll's) and the results will show the link to those long threads...but then it is impossible to search within the long thread to get the same results.

How is it that the big threads are searchable and give returns to site-wide searches, but then time out when searched internally?? If the contents are there for the site search, why not for the thread search? My (admittedly small and blood-deprived) brain can not wrap itself around this inconsistency.

I don't get it either billyellis.
As things are I can't investigate it any further since that requires acces to the SQL database.
The only ones able to do it are Good Samaritan and his software guy.
They have server acces, I haven't.
I have reported the problem with internal search timing out on several occasions.
This far there has been no response.
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The best analogy I can come up with is I am looking for a pair of black socks. I can search my closet as a whole and find out that there is a pair of black socks in my dresser. But if I try to ask what dresser drawer they are in, I would get an error message. The search had to look in the dresser to know that there were black socks in there, so QED it must know what drawer they are in as well. Weird.

thanx svinto and billyellis for weighing in on this issue. i was honestly hoping the problem was on my end but it appears that others are bumping into this as well and it is a little confusing. hopefully those with the proper access will be able to help so we can search more efficiently on this amazing board. thx again

Here's another strange one, in line with the dresser analogy.
If I click on a member to see a list of all posts by the member I get for example a count of 1257 posts found.
Then when I go to the earliest made posts there are only empty pages and not before I get around 1100 I will see actual links to the posts.
I know I have a pair of dark socks but it's so darn dark in the back of the dresser so I can't see them.

This is of course the result of a database that's screwed.
We had about two years ago a problem where complete topics disappeared but the postcount remained for those who had posted in the vanished topic.
At another time I could make posts and the counter next to the avatar didn't took any notice but the postcount shown in my Profile was incremented.

In short there are database problems.
Most likely they will never be completly solved.
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svinto wrote:
In case it ever comes up in discussions of ways to tweak the board settings...

My other pet peeve with the searches is the "View my posts" link on the index page. This does not show me my posts, it shows me threads I have posted in ordered chronologically by other peoples' posts, so it is completely useless in terms of finding a particular post made by me. The only way to actually do that is to search by author on the Search page with "Display results as" set to "posts."

The View-my-posts link does nothing other than filter the tape display to only show threads you have posted in. It does not actually show you your posts in the order you made them. I don't understand why the "View my posts" link is set to return posts by threads and not by posts? It makes no sense to me, but maybe other people find that useful?

billyellis wrote:

Didn't know what you meant before I looked at the index page and clicked the link.
Apparently that means I never use the function.
I agree it is not of any real use.
Unfortunatly that is another setting I don't have acces to.
Alternative to get what you want is to go to your Profile and click the link there.
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