Searching AVForums

**Stuart Wright** · 14-10-2008, 7:55 AM

Of course one of the most powerful and essential elements of AVForums (and any large repository of information) is the ability to find what you want quickly and efficiently.
Unfortunately the vanilla search facility which comes with the vBulletin (the platform we use) is very server-hungry when you have more than around a million posts, and using it would, even with our stellar servers, grind the forums to a halt.
The solution for all large forums is an unofficial modification to vBulletin which involves implementing something called Sphinx, which is a very fast and powerful engine for searching text within large databases.
Sphinx has some drawbacks such as an inability to sort by some criteria, but on the whole, it offers an excellent solution to the problem.
Following some search issues recently, I have just implemented the latest version of the hack, and hopefully searching AVForums will, once again, return the results we need.
Incidentally, the vBulletin team plan to implement Sphinx into the next major release - version 4 - though they don't give any indication of what year that will be happen!

hornydragon · 14-10-2008, 9:07 AM

10:00 am BST, sphinx issues and errors ahoy

Quote:

Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for second argument in [path]/search_sphinx.php on line 160
Database error
The AVForums.com database has encountered a problem.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:
Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
Open the www.avforums.com home page, then try to open another page.
Click the Back button to try another link.

The www.avforums.com forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

*dazza1011* · 14-10-2008, 10:57 AM

Hmm Cant bring up ' My Posts ' or ' My Threads' via quick links

scumball · 14-10-2008, 1:21 PM

Quick links - My posts isn't working for me...

Sometimes get a database error:

Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for second argument in [path]/search_sphinx.php on line 160

Database error

The AVForums.com database has encountered a problem.

Please try the following:

Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
Open the www.avforums.com home page, then try to open another page.
Click the Back button to try another link.

The AVForums.com Home forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Sometimes get this:

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/includes/functions_search.php on line 829

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/includes/functions_search.php on line 829

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/includes/functions_search.php on line 829

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/includes/functions_search.php on line 829

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/includes/functions_search.php on line 829

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/includes/functions_search.php on line 829

Also getting strange font/colour changes in the titles..

hornydragon · 14-10-2008, 10:02 PM

Working now thanks stuart

PJTX100 · 15-10-2008, 7:11 AM

Quick Links / My posts doesn't seem to be picking my posts up from the last day or two.

Also Font sizes and colours on this thread seems a bit awry, eg our usernames in small red font and underlined.

MarkyPancake · 15-10-2008, 8:24 AM

In this thread the links across the top of the thread are a smaller text than normal and are as PJTX100 describes above but are fine everywhere else.

My Posts isn't giving the error codes today but isn't picking up any of my posts after 9:23am yesterday, 14 October 2008.

If I do my usual Advanced Search / Find Posts by User / my user name, it returns all threads that I've started and not threads I've posted in. This has been like this for me since yesterday when the search came back.

hornydragon · 15-10-2008, 10:49 AM

YEah looks like the DB isn't updating since the change (for my posts quicklink )

HSC · 16-10-2008, 6:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PJTX100

Quick Links / My posts doesn't seem to be picking my posts up from the last day or two.

me too

fatboy686 · 16-10-2008, 11:33 AM

me three

MarkyPancake · 16-10-2008, 12:08 PM

Any news on the Advanced Search fault?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjpartyboy

If I do my usual Advanced Search / Find Posts by User / my user name, it returns all threads that I've started and not threads I've posted in. This has been like this for me since yesterday when the search came back.

derek1971 · 16-10-2008, 2:06 PM

Same here - no new posts or threads showing in the "my posts" or "my threads" search from quick links.

**Stuart Wright** · 16-10-2008, 4:00 PM

This is going to take some time, I'm afraid. I'll keep you updated.

MarkyPancake · 17-10-2008, 3:25 PM

My Posts is working for me again today, but the Advanced Search is still returning my threads and not threads I've posted in.

derek1971 · 17-10-2008, 3:25 PM

Some of my posts from the last few days appeared in the "my posts" section today but any new ones i have done today are not there - weird.

**Stuart Wright** · 17-10-2008, 9:28 PM

We had a problem with the search indexing but I'm told that is now fixed.

MarkyPancake · 18-10-2008, 10:08 AM

The Advanced Search is still returning threads I've started and not threads I've posted in when I select Find Posts by User.

DVD-Man · 11-11-2008, 7:34 PM

Is the search facility down again people?

Liam

961 · 19-11-2008, 3:31 PM

I have recently posted an item using the word s******ing which has been bleeped.

As a 70 year old I've never had a problem with this word

Can you explain the difficulty please?