Search Function on the Fritz

by **Todd McCloud** » Wed Sep 14, 2016 8:47 pm

I've checked through three browsers and two devices, but the search function doesn't seem to be working, both the link atop the page in the forums and the search fields atop each forum page. Cleared cookies, changed a few settings, disabled some extensions, all the stuff the cool kids would do, and still no luck. Are these searches forever timing out or is it just me?

by **Phydios** » Wed Sep 14, 2016 9:22 pm

I just did a quick search through my posts for "moderator". Here's the link to the search I did, and here's a screenshot of the results page that I got. It seems to be working just fine for me.

Edit: And as for the "Search this topic" box...link, screenshot. Again, no problems seen. If you've tried multiple devices and browsers, could it be your Internet connection?

by **Todd McCloud** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:11 am

Sure, some search queries seem to work. Try searching "Vekaiyu". There are others, but that's the one I remember the most from when I posted the OP.

by **Flanderlion** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:15 am

I've got one that is still not working 2/3 days later. Thought it was just high server load etc. and it was disabled.

by **Todd McCloud** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:27 pm

Also, I've tried this from multiple internet connections... so that's not the issue. It's a weird issue, though. It's not like it's a high volume problem - I can search Max (a little over 100K results) and the query is addressed quickly. Violet's the same - addressed quickly without issue. Mangione - 31 results - takes a little slower but still works. Heytheseachdoesn'twork has zero results and is returned instantly. But Vekaiyu... times out. I've spent the last 3-5 minutes typing in random words and the likes, and it's weird, but the only one that times out is Vekaiyu.

by **Almonaster Nuevo** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:34 pm

I can confirm it's not just you - I get 1742 results for Almonaster in seconds, a long pause and then nothing for Vekaiyu.

by **Maljaratas** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:36 pm

Almonaster Nuevo wrote:I can confirm it's not just you - I get 1742 results for Almonaster in seconds, a long pause and then nothing for Vekaiyu.

Mine broke as well

Tis obviously a conspiracy in need of a theory.

Edit: OS is Xubuntu 16.04, Whatever the newest version of Firefox is

by **Drasnia** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:37 pm

Probably needless to reiterate, but it times out for me as well.

by **Todd McCloud** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:31 pm

What would cause this? Is the search blocked for that nation, or is it just certain names/words cause it to randomly time out?

Edit: can any mod confirm this?

by **Harenhime** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:48 pm

I'm not sure if this is related, but I've seen almost at random some very long search loading times this week. Like, all other pages loading fine, both on ns and otherwise, and a search will take sometimes even a minute or more to load. Then another search might go instantly like normal, and then it'll have a crappy load again.

-Souls

by **Todd McCloud** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 6:30 pm

So "Vekaiyu" doesn't work, but "Vekaiyu;" works, if that's any help.

by **South Estarieken** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 6:32 pm

Searching for "f*ck", "Arsine", and "Neurocritereal cavity" all yield a slow search time, as well.

by **Ever-Wandering Souls** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:14 pm

searches for "nation found limit" and "puppet creation limit" both took damn near forever to process.

by **Kaboomlandia** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:20 pm

Searching for stuff in NS Sports has been a pain in the ass lately. The first page will take a while to load, then I try to go to a second page and it won't load at all.

by **Richie Valens** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:21 pm

Kaboomlandia wrote:Searching for stuff in NS Sports has been a pain in the ass lately. The first page will take a while to load, then I try to go to a second page and it won't load at all.

Same was happening on a lot of my searches today as well - first page would take 30-45 seconds, and then the second page would time out no matter what. These were either Technical (using the box in technical) or GP, Tech, and Mod using the advanced search,

-Souls

Last.fm · by **Cosumar** » Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:25 am

Kaboomlandia wrote:Searching for stuff in NS Sports has been a pain in the ass lately. The first page will take a while to load, then I try to go to a second page and it won't load at all.

Same here. It has been handcuffing me for close to a week now, and it finally dawned on me that it might be a site issue worth reporting this morning.

On almost any search term for me, it cycles forever and never brings up results. Hopefully this bug is identified and resolved soon.

by **Adevia-Ardvilla** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:20 am

Bump to make sure admins see this.

by **Todd McCloud** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:01 am

Adevia-Ardvilla wrote:Bump to make sure admins see this.

For what it's worth, I can access "Vekaiyu" in the search now, but it does take about half a minute. When it was still not working I would type in "Vekaiyu;" and it started to work much faster for some reason. Don't know if that helps?

by **Adevia-Ardvilla** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 12:46 pm

Bumping again to make sure that admins reply to this.

by **Adevia-Ardvilla** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:47 am

Bump again.

by **Adevia-Ardvilla** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 7:43 am

When will the admins see that Search is broken?

by **Flanderlion** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 5:42 pm

Adevia-Ardvilla wrote:When will the admins see that Search is broken?

They've seen it, and are likely working on more important stuff.

by **Ever-Wandering Souls** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:01 pm

Flanderlion wrote:
Adevia-Ardvilla wrote:When will the admins see that Search is broken?

They've seen it, and are likely working on more important stuff.

aka Halloween >.>

by **Parhe** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 3:34 am

Slightly relieved it wasn't just me. Searching Penglai used to take forever to load. Now it times out for me.

I do wonder what is causing it.

by **Ever-Wandering Souls** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 11:18 pm

Repeatedly got this while attempting to run searches today.

"Server Error! Sorry. We failed to connect you with the NationStates Metaverse.

This may be caused by temporary technical problems, bugs, or widespread political revolution."

Rest of the site and forums works fine, search kept timing out or returning that.

Was trying to search "featured tag" Searching both words timed out. Searching one word returned results with a long wait, but then searching the results of the first word for the second word resulted in 3-4 timeouts before finally working. THen, within those results, kept getting timeouts or long loads trying to navigate to page 2 of results, finally got it, and time out every time I try to navigate to page three.

It's all really strange. I've been playing with it. I just search "banana," got slow loads but no timing out, and could navigate to result pages fine. "Banana split" resulted in several timeouts. I'm guess it's not the terms that's doing it, but something with the number of terms? Or the time of day? Frequency of result? It's really becoming quite annoying to try and search for anything on the forums, and it's limiting my ability to give folks sourced answers to questions because I have trouble searching for old posts. Yet other times things work fine.