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[Fixed] Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 5:56 am
by Quantumpanda
I was trying to determine whether the technical support questions for GraphicConverter I have had already been posted, and was unable to actually do a search of the forums. No matter what I search for, whether it’s a straight search or uses advanced search options, just a single board or the entire forum, it always returns, "The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words:" followed by all the words in my search query.

I don't know if this is a configuration problem on your end, or an issue in phpBB itself, but it's making it difficult for me to avoid posting support questions that have already been addressed. I have questions that I need addressed, but I don't want to ask questions that have already been answered. Please look into this! Thanks!

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:22 am
by forum_adm
Which search terms did you enter?

I use the default phpBB config.

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:03 pm
by Quantumpanda
Well, I started with "browser sort", because the issue I was looking up is one relating to sorting in the browser. When that failed, I tried a variety of variations, all of which failed the same way. Now, I'll grant that because this is GraphicConverter we're talking about, any of these terms could be "common", but this error is usually reserved for searching on words like "and" or "to". The last one I tried, the one that convinced me that the problem is in the search function and not my searches, was "does this search even work". Every single query resulted in the same error.

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 12:09 am
by Nicolas
Same thing for me, any word entered is supposedly too common, so I cannot search anything!

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2021 10:29 am
by forum_adm
Hi,

thanks for your comments.

But I can't change this in the board settings.

Thorsten

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:15 pm
by porg
I also encountered the same exact problem.
- I wanted so search for "file type" or "file format" combined with "in list view".
- but every query yielded that the words were too common.
- It contradicts its own hint, even with a plus prefixed so "+file +type" it yielded nothing, and also not as "file type" (with quotes).

Users following netiquette first search for an answer before asking.

With forum search being defacto useless forum quality decreases tremendously.
- work load for moderators increases (not your intention I guess)
- forum quality suffers (loads of duplicate content, motivation to involve decreases, again quality suffers, vicious circle)

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:41 pm
by porg
Only searching for "filetype" yielded results.

But as English doesn't use too many composite nouns (such as German 😉 ) this is not too helpful. English users will typically spell it as "file type". Hence you need the ability to search with quotes meaning I want exactly those two words in consecutive order.

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 4:38 pm
by forum_adm
Hi,

as written before: phpBB is used for the forum. So, I can't change the behavior - to my knowledge.

Thorsten

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 5:07 pm
by porg
Did some research. These could to be your options:
  • Continue using phpBB Native Fulltext as your Search Engine and set "Common word threshold" to 0.
  • I guess the majority of your user will prefer getting at least some results and overall maybe a bit more, instead of being denied search results all too often, which is frustrating.
  • Change to Sphinx Fulltext as your Search Backend. It offers all the convenient search operators users love, such as a phrase search operator where "hello world" will yield results with words exactly in that order.
Official manual: https://download.phpbb.com/pub/document ... tation.pdf

phpBB themselves also realize the importance of search for the quality of a forum:
2.3.5. Search settings
Your board can be a well of information. Being able to effectively search through this information is very important, especially if you want to reduce the amount of redundant topics are posted on your board.
The manual states:
Search Backends: MySQL Fulltext, phpBB Native Fulltext, PostgreSQL Fulltext, and Sphinx Fulltext.
Elsewhere I found confirmation that
phpBB [Native Fulltext] indexes words, not phrases.
The manual on Fulltext native:
Common word threshold: Like phpBB2's stopwords feature, you can prevent the use of common words that you specify. However, this feature is expanded upon in phpBB3. You can now control the threshold that a word can have; this means that if a word is contained in more than a certain percentage of posts on your board, it will be deemed as a common word, and will be ignored in search queries. All positive integers are valid values, and represent the percentage of posts on your board words can be contained in. If you would like to disable this threshold and thereby allow searches using all words, even if they can be common, set this value to "0".

Re: Forum search doesn't work for me

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:46 pm
by forum_adm
phpBB Native Fulltext is already active.

I set the word threshold now to zero.

Thorsten