Way to make phpBB search less fussy?

[Kerrith]

After several years of posting/replying I often forget the title or a full sentence in a post/reply so I phpBB search by entering one or two words. I.e. "first lie" but I get nothing. Is there a way to fetch a post/reply using one or two words?
Thanks, Kerry

[david63]

If you are not getting any results from a search when there should be some maybe due to one of several reasons.

- You have your "Min characters indexed by search" set too high.
- The search term is found too frequently.
- You have not set up a search index, or it is not working.

Check your search settings and then try rebuilding your search index (depending on the size of your board this may take quite a long time)

[Kerrith]

Thanks for the tips david63.
I'll try them.

[Kerrith]

The search engine has been working correctly. I checked the search settings and they look to be optimized for my needs. I see now what I want is to be able to enter, toy, sad, or hit, but when I do I get the "common" word error.

Is there a way to make single three-letter words appear in the search results?

Thanks, Kerry

[warmweer]

The search engine has been working correctly. I checked the search settings and they look to be optimized for my needs. I see now what I want is to be able to enter, toy, sad, or hit, but when I do I get the "common" word error.

Is there a way to make single three-letter words appear in the search results?

I think there's a setting which defines a word as common. (x% or so). If you increase that setting, less words will be classified as too common, but no guarantees that all the 3-letter words you require will not continue being marked as common.
IIRC Sphinx can be used for full search (but I have never used it so I can't be sure.

[Kerrith]

H'm, I must have misunderstood---I thought the "0" setting allowed common words.
Kerry

[warmweer]

H'm, I must have misunderstood---I thought the "0" setting allowed common words.
Kerry

That's correct, and IIRC there's something likeMininimum characters for index , can't remember the exact wording but you'll find it, which has to be 3 if you want 3 letter words (if it's higher than 3, then words like and, for, etc won't be indexed.).
Also take into account that a change in settings will only be in effect after recreating the search index.

[P_I]

The search engine has been working correctly. I checked the search settings and they look to be optimized for my needs. I see now what I want is to be able to enter, toy, sad, or hit, but when I do I get the "common" word error.

Is there a way to make single three-letter words appear in the search results?

Thanks, Kerry

My workaround for the "common word" issue is use an asterisk, i.e. if 'toy' is a common word, search for 'toy*'.

[Kerrith]

Awesome P_I.

Mucho thankso, Kerry

[KYPREO]

changing the minimum characters and common word settings will only work for new posts - Warmweer is right when he says that it won't affect existing posts without rebuilding the search index.

If you do rebuild the search index, I would consider having a go at doing it offline first, with the view of then uploading it to the live board once built. The last time we had to rebuild the search index it took several weeks. This is on a board with 2 million posts, so not sure how big your board is. even with a smallish board, the search index is probably the biggest table in the database. You don't want to have a live board with no search functionality while the search index rebuilds.

[Kerrith]

Thanks KYPREO. The option to index search is not highlighted. In any case, we only have about 500 posts. It appears to be working as I want now.
With appreciation, Kerry