[BUG] Search "All of my search term words" not working

[SoMuchTV]

I just watched the movie Next Goal Wins on Hulu, and I wanted to see if there was an existing topic for it. So I searched for “next goal wins” and of course I got everything with next or goal or wins in the post. So I tried to pick the option to include the whole phrase, and in post titles only, but I still seem to be getting anything with next in the post. What should I be doing to successfully search for a movie title? 

[Mod-Tigerkatze]

It sounds like you picked the right option when you chose "content title only". I tried it via the +More Search Options function and the "Didn't find what you were looking for" option and it limited my results to three.

Alternatively, when you open up the Movies forum page, you can temporarily sort the forum by title. It will give you all of the topics in alphabetical order, so you can see at a glance which topics there are that start with "NE".

I hope that helps.

[Bastet]

On 2/17/2024 at 6:29 PM, SoMuchTV said:

So I searched for “next goal wins” and of course I got everything with next or goal or wins in the post. So I tried to pick the option to include the whole phrase, and in post titles only, but I still seem to be getting anything with next in the post.

I was looking in posts rather than titles, but this happened to me yesterday -- I don't remember where it occurred (not in Movies), but I remember a brief discussion of the film Food Inc.  Searching "food inc" gives me everything with "food" OR "inc", but selecting "the phrase 'food inc'" still gave me 100+ pages of results (some of which didn't even seem to include the word food or inc, let alone both of them or the phrase) rather than posts that only included that phrase.

Edited February 26 by Bastet

[SoMuchTV]

18 hours ago, Mod-Tigerkatze said:

It sounds like you picked the right option when you chose "content title only". I tried it via the +More Search Options function and the "Didn't find what you were looking for" option and it limited my results to three.

Alternatively, when you open up the Movies forum page, you can temporarily sort the forum by title. It will give you all of the topics in alphabetical order, so you can see at a glance which topics there are that start with "NE".

I hope that helps.

Thanks for checking.  I couldn't seem to find any combination of options that limited the results to three, though.  And there were clearly results that didn't meet the criteria (didn't include the whole phrase, didn't even include all the words).  I did check the Movies forum alphabetically and it wasn't there, but I was wondering if someone had mentioned it in some other context (talk show guest promoting it, "what we've watched lately", etc.)  I know I could just start a thread in the Movies forum but by now I've forgotten most of my thoughts about it.

[SomeTameGazelle]

The search function is definitely not applying  "All of my search term words" correctly. It is also not handling searches for a full phrase enclosed in quotes. Every search I use with more than one word is returning results that include any of the words.

I searched for the words Single jeopardy with "Any of my search term words" selected and got 89.1k results.

I selected the option "single AND jeopardy" and still had 89.1k results.

I selected the option for the phrase "single jeopardy" and still had 89.1k results.

I started a new search with "All of my search term words" selected and got the same 89.1k results.

When I look at individual results most include only one of the words. When I add a filter by author that does limit the results by author but does not affect the word/phrase results.

ETA: same issue both on my phone (Chrome on Android) and on my laptop (Firefox, Windows 11).

Edited March 23 by SomeTameGazelle
Same behaviour on different devices

[SomeTameGazelle]

I posted this as a reply in a question thread but it has still not been approved and the issue persists.

The search function is definitely not applying  "All of my search term words" correctly. It is also not handling searches for a full phrase enclosed in quotes. Every search I use with more than one word is returning results that include any of the words.

I searched for the words Single jeopardy with "Any of my search term words" selected and got 89.1k results.

I selected the option "single AND jeopardy" and still had 89.1k results.

I selected the option for the phrase "single jeopardy" and still had 89.1k results.

I started a new search with "All of my search term words" selected and got the same 89.1k results.

When I look at individual results most include only one of the words. When I add a filter by author that does limit the results by author but does not affect the word/phrase results.

ETA: same issue both on my phone (Chrome on Android) and on my laptop (Firefox, Windows 11).

[SoMuchTV]

Yep, I’ve been seeing the same problem.  I posted here a couple months ago but it hasn’t been resolved. 
 

 

 

[CM-BlueButterfly]

Apologies for the delay.

Unfortunately, it's a software issue that's the result of adjustments that were made to the search function. The issue has been passed along.

And while I know that it's a commonly used phrase, please know that I mean it when I say, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

[Dimity]

Hi I've been trying to use the search option but when I try a boolean search I keep getting "Bad Gateway".  Am I doing something wrong?  Thanks!

[shapeshifter]

On 4/30/2024 at 5:33 PM, Dimity said:

Hi I've been trying to use the search option but when I try a boolean search I keep getting "Bad Gateway".  Am I doing something wrong?  Thanks!

You are correct, @Dimity, and not doing anything wrong.

This phrase search in Google works:

• abishola NOT olu site:forums.primetimer.com

But this search results in a “502 Bad Gateway” timeout:

• https://forums.primetimer.com/search/?&q=abishola NOT olu&search_and_or=or

Edited May 2 by shapeshifter

[possibilities]

I find this site's search function often useless. But sometimes it works to go off site and do a search for what you want to search for + primetimer.com

 

I use duckduckgo.com. Don't know if it works with google, but it probably does.

[CM-BlueButterfly]

I apologize for the ongoing search function issues. They had been supposed to be resolved...

The reported problem has been passed on.

[AllAstronauts]

I got pinged on this so I took a look and I have a few things for you all. Some of this will be known by some of you, others maybe not, so thanks for staying with me as I walk through some of this.

Gonna set some terms here first:

Site Search = the question mark in the top right of the web page (on desktop). The build in search.

Shows Search = the search box on the home page right above the Browse by Shows text and the block of your favorite shows or all the popular shows on the other tab.

Shows Index = When you are logged in, clicking your username in the top right of the page (desktop) will display your usermenu. One setting option is the TV Show Index. It is what it is. Every show here.

 

Your "Shows" are all forums, not topics. So if you want to see if a show you just started watching is set up here and you search for "Awesome Show Name" you will almost certainly NEVER get the results you want.

Why? Because forums (and naturally forum titles) are not indexed; the topic titles and topic content within them are. 

This site presents a unique problem. I think the drama category alone has well over 1000 shows (forums). Additionally, changes to the home page have removed to bulk of what is displayed to speed up the home page loading.

So. 

If you want to find a SHOW:

Use the Shows Search on the homepage. After you type the third character in the search box, it will begin to auto-populate existing shows. Keep adding characters from the show name until your show appears. If it does not appear as a drop-down choice; it is not set up here. period. Full stop. If it does appear, and you select it from the drop down, you will immediately be taken to that forum.

Barring that, just use the TV Show Index and browse for what you want.

If you use the Site Search to find "Awesome Show Name", chances are you are not going to get many, if any matches. That would require that either the topic title has "Awesome Show Name" in it, or somewhere within any of the topics of the topic that there is "Awesome Show Name" within it. At least when I talk about shows within a forum specific to the show, I don't usually state the show name again.

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

Ok, that out of the way.

The first post here was looking for someone talking about the movie "Next Goal Wins". Putting aside any/all search problems, the reason why nothing was returned, and still nothing now, is because aside from the first post in this very topic, "Next Goal Wins" is not here. Anywhere.

Lets use Furiosa instead, which is a topic in the Movies forum here.

Using site search, no problem. Its the third hit. 109 results. That was probably too easy. Lets go with something harder.

The Boys in the Boat. "The" and "in" will be skipped as common words but boys and boat? Over the untold thousands of posts here I'm sure we'll get hits all over the place for those words. And we do. 60k+ results. But! The boys in the boat topic is the second result. Run it again with exact phrase or just doing the content titles filter? Yep, we're number one. There are still other results returned, but the one that matters is right there.

Mind you, I'm cheating here - I noticed the site search was set to OR instead of AND by default and that makes a huge difference. 

It's on AND now.

Now do I see hitches still? Yes. For one, a results limit is being over-ridden somewhere (5000 returned is the default returned). I think there's some other crud somewhere as well. Timeouts? Plugin problem? Default MySQL settings? I'm going to take a swing through some server stuff soon (I'm not the server guy but I think I'm adopting?) and we'll see what's what.

No matter. Try some searches now that I changed to default to AND.

[SomeTameGazelle]

6 minutes ago, AllAstronauts said:

No matter. Try some searches now that I changed to default to AND.

Site search shows no improvement. ALL and ANY search terms are returning the same number of results. The only difference is that now the site search default starts with ALL instead of ANY.

 

[SoMuchTV]

6 minutes ago, AllAstronauts said:

The first post here was looking for someone talking about the movie "Next Goal Wins". Putting aside any/all search problems, the reason why nothing was returned, and still nothing now, is because aside from the first post in this very topic, "Next Goal Wins" is not here. Anywhere.

I’m the poster who was originally searching for “next goal wins”. I just tried that search again, and the options defaulted to “all my search terms” but I still got 300+k results. If that phrase doesn’t exist anywhere, or if that combination of words doesn’t exist anywhere, I’d expect the search results to tell me that, not give me 300+k results to sift through. I feel like there’s a disconnect in what we’re talking about here. 
 

[AllAstronauts]

6 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

not give me 300+k results to sift through

Agreed. Something is being over-ridden somewhere. Even phrase searches result in the same. Like I said, there are still things not right.

[SoMuchTV]

13 minutes ago, AllAstronauts said:

Agreed. Something is being over-ridden somewhere. Even phrase searches result in the same. Like I said, there are still things not right.

Yeah. Just because I have a software tester mentality, I posted a comment with “next goal wins” in the text. Didn’t seem to make a difference to the search results. 

Edited June 11 by SoMuchTV

[CM-BlueButterfly]

It seems that when you search for a phrase and there's no match, the search function ignores that you're searching for the phrase and shows anything with any of the terms in the topic title instead of giving you a "no match".

When you use the show search on the homepage or the member search and there's no match, you do get "no match". 

 

[AllAstronauts]

And now...

[CM-BlueButterfly]

It works for me and it even seems to sort by relevance (which I wasn't under the impression it did before). 

Unfortunately, I'm back to this: 

[AllAstronauts]

I had to reset the caches for the site. Your browser hasn't caught up. Just refresh.

[SoMuchTV]

16 hours ago, AllAstronauts said:

And now...

It's a miracle!  It's working!  Looks like you've been busy today.

One small thing (and maybe there's no way around this) but when I follow a link in the search results, then go "back", the search results page is "expired".  You can refresh it if you hit refresh and then confirm that you want to refresh.  Is that intended behavior?

[AllAstronauts]

1 hour ago, SoMuchTV said:

Is that intended behavior?

No but you are going to have to eat this one for now. Its a server configuration hitch or the plugin that is altering search stuff. This is, honestly, small beans right now so imma gonna note it and leave for when I make a bunch of server adjustments in the near future.