Forum Search Limit

[a6april]

I like this forum but I have a little quirk with the search tool. It says I have to wait 11 minutes or something to do a second search if I couldn't find any results the first time, This is a little weird I guess you are trying to save load when doing this if everyone is searching, but this may be defeating your purpose, instead of finding the help one needs they are forced to make another post because they can't search for the answer. I sometimes spend hours reading help files and discussions before I bother someone with a post, if I can't find something similar I'll make a new thread, if I find something similar I'll refine my post to that thread.

[uberhost]

It's 30 seconds.

[PPH]

Yeah I keep running into the limit using the new posts button to read. If it's only one post it only takes about 5-10 seconds to read and then clicking new posts is caught waiting for the 30 to complete. Out of all the forums I read, this is the only one that causes this. And the others all seem to do just fine.

[bear]

It's not that there's something wrong with this forum, it's by choice. If you've clicked the new posts link, why not just open each post/thread you're interested in reading in a new window instead of the main one? You don't have to wait, and the original search results are still there. There should be no reason to repeatedly hit a new search just to read new posts every 5 seconds, and quite frankly, proves the setting might be necessary.

[PPH]

It's not that there's something wrong with this forum, it's by choice. If you've clicked the new posts link, why not just open each post/thread you're interested in reading in a new window instead of the main one? You don't have to wait, and the original search results are still there. There should be no reason to repeatedly hit a new search just to read new posts every 5 seconds, and quite frankly, proves the setting might be necessary.

I've done it both ways and it takes to long and gets confusing that way. I could see the setting if it was causing problems with the site, but the other sites I read without that setting are busier than this one, so I have trouble understanding the reasoning. I learned to live with it, although it causes the time to read the forum to increase. If it becomes unacceptable, I know where the door is

[uberhost]

Once you've clicked New Posts, just read each post of interest and then click the back button (or Backspace on your keyboard) to return to the search results.

[bear]

You wouldn't really leave because of search time limit, would you? An inconvenience, perhaps...but is it really that onerous?

[PPH]

You wouldn't really leave because of search time limit, would you? An inconvenience, perhaps...but is it really that onerous?

Not really, only if it became too time consuming. I already spend too much time with them as it is... I can always use the alternate method. After all WHMCS provides a valuable service having these forums, especially with all the helpful active posters

[othellotech]

Yeah I keep running into the limit using the new posts button to read. If it's only one post it only takes about 5-10 seconds to read and then clicking new posts is caught waiting for the 30 to complete. Out of all the forums I read, this is the only one that causes this. And the others all seem to do just fine.

 

And you've never worked out that BACK in your browser is a million times quicker than doing the query again, or that you can leave the new-posts list open and ctrl-click the links to open in a new tab, or that you could open each thread with a simple script each in a new window or ...

 

I bet the server admins for those other forums just hate you

[Matt]

Due to popular demand, the forum search limit has now been halved to just once every 15 seconds. Hope it helps in your searching!

 

Matt

[PPH]

Due to popular demand, the forum search limit has now been halved to just once every 15 seconds. Hope it helps in your searching!

 

Matt

Thanks so much Matt! You are a star as always

[PhilB]

Does this forum really get hammered that hard that a search limitation is at all necessary given that not-logged-in users have a captcha to answer anyway?

 

I keep tripping over it when I get zero results found and want to amend my search and it's incredibly annoying

[bear]

It's not about logged in vs not, it's about reducing the number of searches performed per minute overall. It's only 15 seconds, much shorter than many forums I visit. I know one really large one where it's 90 seconds.

[PhilB]

Yeah, but is the limit actually necessary? Usually, it's turned on by forums who don't have captcha etc for not-logged-in users to reduce the rate any abuse can take place at (such as a dumb spammer bot thinking it's a contact form and trying to submit 50 POST requests a second to it).

 

I can't imagine this forum is that heavily trafficed, and any sort of throttling/qos limit is a band aid to the real solution (upgrade infrastructure).

[bear]

We have our reasons, and they don't include poor infrastructure.

The limit will remain, as it's not that intrusive as long as you search wisely. If you're having trouble finding the right results, perhaps your search methods need addressing?

[PhilB]

Congratulations! From zero to presumptious ass in two posts. Impressive.

 

I'll stop doing due diligence and searching for varying terms when I want to post a bug report or feature enhancement then (which, if it hasn't been reported before will involve a whole shitpile of "no matches found" results) and just pile straight in and make dupe posts instead. Yeah, that'll be much better.

 

Perhaps if WHMCS doesn't want to fix the forum ("we have our reasons" ) to assist the customers filing about the bugs that QA missed or filing enhancements to improve the product offering, you should get a real bug tracker installed that we can file reports in instead where the searching isn't crippled.

[bear]

Congratulations! From zero to presumptious ass in two posts. Impressive.

Keep it civil, or take it elsewhere, please. That's unnecessary.

 

The forum doesn't need "fixing". Your inability to locate things in a search may well be caused by your search methods or terms, not the time limit on searches, which has nothing whatsoever to do with finding things.

[PhilB]

On civility, you're the one who's implying I lack the sufficient mental acuity to construct a search that is likely to yield results rather than asking what I'm attempting to achieve that's causing me to bump into the time limit (and you might consider this churlish of me, but "we have our reasons" for maintaining a throttle when you have other means at your disposal to combat abuse is almost worse than admitting that you have no reason at all).

 

Nonetheless, you still don't seem to be getting me, so let's try and be more explicit:

 

When looking to post a bug report or enhancement request, I am frequently searching for things that are quite likely to return zero (or irrelevant) results ON PURPOSE.

 

This is not a fault of my 'method' or 'terms' but the fact I'm likely to be posting about something for which a thread does not exist (but for which I am expected to do due diligence in making sure it has not already been reported; see the first sentence here http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=14017).

 

Multiple searches have to be performed to take into account that different people use different terms, and that it IS NOT POSSIBLE to search for all of these permutations in one hit (unless I make a ridiculously broad search, such as 'domain' - then, instead, I get to waste half an hour checking all the returned threads for relevance.) It often takes a lot less than 15 seconds to review the resultlist for each attempt to find an existing post.

 

Added into the mix there comes the irritation that it's quite easy to forget that this forum doesn't index (and so won't search for) <3 character keywords - chucking searching for any two letter TLD out of the window, and wasting a precious search in the process as the forum doesn't just ignore invalid terms and search without them, but blocks the entire search instead.

 

You might consider that I'm posting bug reports for my own benefit, and that I should be glad for the opportunity to improve the product, or some such. If that were so, I might consider just fixing the bugs myself in my install, and not sharing the information upstream, with the added bonus that not only do I not have to wait for someone to take ownership of the problem and roll it into the next release, but I saved myself 15 minutes of documentation/reporting!

 

Just because I (and others) are prepared to file reports back upstream without invoicing someone for time spent in identifying (and in some cases documenting at length) an issue, or the incidental cost of a bug such as a lost sale etc, doesn't mean that my (or their) time is worthless. (It is deeply ironic that I am wasting it having to go into such depths of explanation, but I'm sure you understand that when you implicitly accuse someone of literally being thicker than two short planks it tends to turn the point at hand into a point of principle).

 

I don't think I can make it any plainer than this. If you're still not understanding why the limit is a pain in the ass (particularly if it can't be justified), I'll resort to simply making one search effort at finding existing threads in future, and if a dupe is made as a result, so be it, as much as that goes against one of my other points of principle to actually search thoroughly before posting mindlessly.

[bear]

On civility, you're the one who's implying I lack the sufficient mental acuity to construct a search that is likely to yield results

Now who's being presumptive?

It has as much to do with mental acuity as a time limit does with obtaining results. I was not being rude, and did not call you a name. Can you say the same? No.

 

So, suffice it to say that the owner of the script, site and forum has decided to limit the searches to one every 15 seconds. If that doesn't suit your methods or needs, you have two choices:

1) Complain to Matt, and see if he will remove the limit just for you.

2) Use Google advanced search to look in this site. The information Google yields is far superior to VB's built in search function, time limited or not.

 

We will not allow you to bully or insult any member or staff in any manner here on this board, so take that into account if you intend to reply again, and that includes "dumbing down" your explanation as if that were needed.

 

I might consider just fixing the bugs myself in my install,

And precisely how would you do that in a fully encrypted product?