Forum Moderator Forum search engine deterioration

craftech wrote on 1/16/2008, 5:38 AM

The search engine on the forum used to pull up lots of useful information with little effort.

Lately, I get the following message more often than not:

"Your search was too broad, please narrow your search options and try again."

Let's take the one I just tried:

I searched the term Mike Crash.

Many of you know we have discussed his Vegas filters for years.
Searching the Vegas Video forum with the "any date" parameter using the term "Mike Crash" produced the following result:

"Your search was too broad, please narrow your search options and try again."

So then I used the search term "Mike Crash + Smart Smoother" and it produced the following result:

"The search returned no results "

So I tried the term "Smart Smoother" and it produced the following result:

"Your search was too broad, please narrow your search options and try again. "

Then I tried the term "video noise reduction" and it produced the following result:

"Your search was too broad, please narrow your search options and try again."

Then I searched the term "noise reduction filter" and narrowed it down to search only the "last 6 months". This time it produced ten results. I changed it to search "any date" and it produced the following result:

"Your search was too broad, please narrow your search options and try again. "

So it won't search beyond 6 months now?????

This problem is becoming more and more frequent and after years of depending upon the archive of posts and the forum search engine to answer MOST of my questions I find I can no longer easily find what I am looking for.

Please set up the search engine the way it used to be set up.

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Comments

craftech wrote on 1/28/2008, 12:07 PM

Thanks you for responding to this. It is most appreciated.

"One thing we have planned is to move the forums database out of our main website database. This should help with forum speed in general."
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That sounds like a good idea. Hopefully that will work.
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"1. Using the same search engine our main site uses. It's much faster, but it's not a "live" search. We'd index nightly so your search results wouldn't include messages in the last 24 hours. Also, it's a more basic search. It would take away some of the search options like searching by user name, sorting by date etc.
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We have always appreciated the full functionality of the search engine and have used it extensively. Any limitations to what it was in the past would be a last resort I think.
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2. Clearing out some of the old messages in this forum, or archiving them somehow, so that searches are focusing on only the last couple years or so.
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I completely agree with Grazie. The database as it stands right now is a goldmine of information that serves to answer repeated questions and things we often forget, especially when we don't use a particular feature of Vegas for a long time. Rather than post the question we usually can find it through a search that sometimes takes us back a few years.

John

johnmeyer wrote on 1/28/2008, 5:02 PM

I'd hate to see any compromise on the functionality or the scope of the search feature. While I am sure the database is big, quite frankly by current day standards, it actually quite small.

How small?

I just did a quick check, and as of this minute, you show 82,200 total topics in your database. This particular topic has twenty-six posts; but most have fewer. If I assume ten posts on average, then you have about one million entries in your database. That is a very small number for a modern indexing system to track, index and retrieve. There's got to be some CS student at the local UofW looking for some spare change. Give her the project and two weeks to finish it, and hopefully the whole thing will be solved.

p.s. I just did a similar calculation over at the doom9.org video forum. They actually show the number of posts, and it is almost exactly one million, with 111,960 total topics, so my 10:1 assumption looks to be pretty close. Like many forums, they limit searches so you can't do more than one every ten seconds. There are various things I like and various things I dislike about the vBulletin (their forum software) compared to this forum, but the one thing I can say for sure is this:

It is fast.

Jonathan Neal wrote on 1/28/2008, 8:22 PM

Hey johnmeyer,

I've actually downloaded a portion of the forums and am currently converting it over to a MySQL database. It wouldn't actually take a whole lot to write a new UI for the forums. If they don't solve the problem soon, I'll try to post a search-able archive on my site. You may remember, I created an alternative version of these forums before, so I could try to keep the layout pretty similar. I dunno, it's just an idea.

johnmeyer wrote on 1/28/2008, 8:26 PM

am currently converting it over to a MySQL database ...

I'll bet it doesn't take more than about 1/100 of a second to get search results.

Jonathan Neal wrote on 1/28/2008, 8:51 PM

Johnmeyer, in short, yes. What I don't get is why the database is having any trouble at all though. It may have something to do with the fact that it's merged with the site's database, but still, this isn't Onkyo, it's Sony.

Let's also remember that these forums are free for us, so there needs to be a solution that is worth the cost of the developer's time and Sony's money. I'm not sure how much revenue is generated because of these threads, but I would guess it's enough that they have invested as much as they have.

Realistically, if they have the staff for this, they should consider migrating the database over to something more reliable, gradually if necessary, or achieving the entire existing forums and launching another one. Someone on staff must know what what factors are causing these issues, while I don't, so I'm shooting in the dark here. In either suggestion, the "gold mine" of posts will still be available.

Are there any other Java/PHP/MySQL programmers in the house?

johnmeyer wrote on 1/28/2008, 9:36 PM

Without knowing anything about their server, it is clear from posts over the years that this is a home-grown system, and whoever did it may be long gone. More important, as a one-off design, it probably was never designed to scale. While some people in these forums love its layout, and while I certainly don't mind it, I would much prefer to have them use one of the standard forum software packages. While I can find things to grouse about, the fact is that these programs have been refined over the years; they scale well; and they have DOZENS of features lacking here. Economically, I would think it would be a lot cheaper to move the existing database over to one of these programs and then assign the engineers to designing more great media software rather than trying to invent a better forum BBS.

craftech wrote on 1/29/2008, 5:46 AM

Jon,

That is a really nice offer you made. Thank you.

However, I think It is in the software team's best interest to make the searchable database a priority though.

I think this needs repeating again. I think they understand it, but it probably is a good idea to keep repeating it:

A fully searchable database of posts that date right back to the beginning takes most of the load off tech support and regular members of the forum in terms of software usage and problem solving. The searchable database is the single most used resource for working with Vegas. With it left intact we can utilize this software with little help. That's good for Madison.

If not for this wonderful forum over the years, I don't think as many people would be using Vegas today. Just a guess on that one.

John

riredale wrote on 1/29/2008, 8:19 AM

Agreed.

I first started using Vegas3 in 2002. I've learned about all I'm going to be able to absorb at this point, yet I still make it a point to see what's happening here nearly every day. Maybe it's because I am still impressed by this neat piece of software. Maybe because I enjoy reading the commentary of friendly people 1,000, 3,000, or even 10,000 miles away.

Or maybe it's just a sick compulsion.

craftech wrote on 2/8/2008, 4:55 PM

Just a reminder to the forum moderators that the search engine is still just as broken as when I first started this thread.

Thanks,

John

craftech wrote on 2/11/2008, 4:17 AM

Bump.

John

craftech wrote on 2/12/2008, 11:32 AM

Bump

John

craftech wrote on 2/14/2008, 7:13 AM

Please fix the search engine.

Thanks,

John

craftech wrote on 2/17/2008, 7:11 AM

Just another reminder.

The problem is a major one. It is not only crippling Vegas users' ability to help themselves, but also hindering our ability to help others. Please fix this now..

Thanks

John

craftech wrote on 2/19/2008, 9:28 AM

Bump

John

johnmeyer wrote on 2/19/2008, 9:37 AM

The reason the forum administrators don't answer is that they can't get on the forum to read your message.

craftech wrote on 2/19/2008, 11:05 AM

The reason the forum administrators don't answer is that they can't get on the forum to read your message.
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LOL..........That's the funniest thing I have read all day.

Thanks John,

John

Kennymusicman wrote on 2/19/2008, 11:25 AM

John - I have to admire your persistance in trying to get our life improved :)

DavidMcKnight wrote on 2/20/2008, 3:29 AM

Funny how an issue doesn't seem too important until it affects you, meaning me.

Bump

David

Jay Gladwell wrote on 2/21/2008, 4:55 AM

HELLO!

Anybody home?

jwcarney wrote on 2/21/2008, 6:03 AM

Search is still broken.
Hello Jay.

craftech wrote on 2/21/2008, 6:07 AM

Thanks for the reinforcement guys.

Regards,
John

AndyMac wrote on 2/21/2008, 7:17 AM

There seems to be two major issues:-

1. The forum is crawling along... *really* very slow indeed, and

2. The Search function simply doesn't work any more.
I get this message for everything I try at the moment...
"Your search was too broad, please narrow your search options and try again"

I'l add my plea to the list - Please at least fix the Search engine - that is vital.
Speed increase would be great, but I'll wait around for something which works, even eventually.

Thanks,
Andy Mac

NickHope wrote on 2/21/2008, 7:40 AM

Yeah, the whole thing has just about ground to a halt now.

Trying to search "Stage6", user name "Nick Hope", last 6 months and it's telling me the search is too broad.

fldave wrote on 2/21/2008, 7:53 AM

I just reported this to the Web Site Support link in the Contact Us link above. Has anyone done this yet?

Hi, fldave from the forums here.

I have been increasingly frustrated using your forum search feature, as it is returning "search is too broad" messages for almost everything I have entered today.

Other people on the forum are agreeing, not sure if anyone has sent you this information.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=571441&Replies=47

The search is a valuable tool for all of us and helps us to avoid posting redundant and unnecessary messages.

Please try to fix, or at least provide us some information on what we can expect in the future on this feature