UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.classic UBB.classic 5 Support Odd Searching problem

Hi,

I'm an Administrator for the UBB 5.45c at the following URL:
http://128.11.11.167/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi

We have developed a problem with the search feature in one of our Forums. This forum has about 5,000 topics total and when people try to use the "search" feature, it seems to invariably time out.

We have checked that an Index file is being created, but we were looking for any other possible solutions that would cause this behavior besides the forum just being too large.

Is there a "preferred" number of topics that we should use as our "limit" before moving or archiving topics?

Also, is there a way to "bulk move" messages rather than one at a time with the moderator "move" command at the bottom of each Topic page?

Thanks for any help you may be able to offer.

Sincerely,

John :-)

The threshold at which things start to get a bit stressed is completely dependant on the server.

The server does seem quite fast. I'm not sure I'd want to blame this on the server not being able to handle the UBB quite yet.

Let's try something - can you upgrade to 5.47d, then rebuild the search indexes and try again?

If you're still getting errors, Ron Carnell's archive manager will meet all your mass move needs (and a lot more...)

Hi Charles,

Thanks for the reply. I'll get back to you on this.

Best,

John <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> www.starclubs.com

Hi Charles,

>>Let's try something - can you upgrade to 5.47d, then rebuild the search
indexes and try again?<<

Okay, we've upgraded to Ultimate Bulletin Board™ 5.47d plus we've re-uploaded search.cgi and have re-indexed. This fixed our Forum 15 search error where we would just get a blank search page with no hits even when searching for a known parameter.

Forum 11, Total Health Makeover Forum, however, just times out every time. The upgrade didn't resolve the problem.

I'm wondering if there is a problem caused by customization. Can you give me a list of items to check?

Thanks for the help.

Best,

John <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
www.marilu.com

Moving to PIT - seems more appropriate.. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Graeme

Well, that IS the largest forum, so it would make sense.

While the rest of the UBB is chugging along nicely, it appears that the search has come to a dead end.

From here, you will have to either prune or use the mass move utility I linked to above in order to remedy this problem.

I'd recommend using the move utility. DON'T move the threads into Archives, just a forum with restricted posting privs.

After UBB6 is released and declared stable, you might try upgrading to see if the search decides to work with more threads again.

Thanks for the Reply.

>>From here, you will have to either prune or use the mass move utility I linked to above in order to remedy this problem.

I'd recommend using the move utility. DON'T move the threads into Archives, just a forum with restricted posting privs.
<<

Okay, I'll work on that part.

Earlier you mentioned the server seemed fast enough, so we tried to use the single index file option. We selected the General Setting to create one index file but then this gave us a blank results page no matter what we tried. Reindexing didn't create the index file when we tried (same problem we had with Forum 15 previously).

So we created a blank file called forumindex.cgi and uploaded that, but reindexing didn't write to the new file either. Finally, we've deleted forumindex.cgi from the server and set the General Settings back to one file per forum indexing. Now we're back able to search all but one of the forums again (the big one).

So, we'll work on the cutting it down to size and see what happens.

Thanks,

John <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
www.marilu.com

Whoa, hold on, back up....

You're using the single index option!? That's suicide on large boards.

Go to individual forum indexes and try searching the forum again.

Hi,

Thanks for bearing with us as we try to figure out our search problem in Forum 11 (from above).

Okay, we're set to single indexes again and search still seems to time-out, so we've installed Carnell's Archive Manager utility which was suggested above in order to pare down the size of the forum. (We were moving threads indivicually, so this hopefully will be a big timesaver).

Now it seems like there is some error in the utility installation. Our Control Panel is at:

StarClubs Control Panel

I've selected the following settings for Mass Move:

1. Support for "Last Reply Hack" = No
2. Mass Move operation: = Mass Move
3. Move From : = Total Health Makeover
4. Sort Threads: = Reverse Date
5. Return Max Count: = 200
6. Return Threads Older: = 282 (days)

Left 7 & 8 blank (subject & authors)

9. Mark Returned threads: = Yes

10. Auto-Select = No (I've tried it both ways.. same result)

11. Rebuild = No (I've tried it both ways.. same result)

12. Update Rate: = 200
13. Cycle Pause: = 5

14. Transfer Topic To: = THM Archive 1 (with Delete Topic Selected).

Next, I click on "Submit Mass Move Choices) and I'm returned the following (as expected):

Carnell Utilities v00.85
Mass Move

Mass Move Operation: Move Threads
Cycle Rate: 200
Rebuild while Moving: no
Prune Replies: no
Archive or Transfer: Transfer
Source: Total Health Makeover
Destination: Total Health Makeover - Archive 1
Source Operation: Delete

All threads that have been checked will be included in your Move.

Then I get a list of 16 Threads Returned (18 Posts). We wanted to try a "small batch first" before we try a major move.

Now at this point when I click on the MOVE button, I get:

Moving threads 16 out of 16 and a quick flash telling me it will take so much time (I think it said 37 minutes or something) and then a final page says "StarClub BBS is currently Active" and I'm asked whether to "Skip Existing HTML Pages" (default = No) and again for "Update Cycle Rate" (which is set at 200 default).

Finally, clicking "Update Threads Now" returns a "Starting Forum Update... Source Forum Not Updated" and this followed by a repeated loop "Continuing Threads Update... Destination Forum not updated."

It basically stays in this loop until I shut it down and never moves the threads. I notice my oldest threads (from 4/25/2000 and prior) at:

Total Health Makeover - Last Page,

(the ones I'm trying to archive), are still there but with no thread names listed. When I go check the Destination Forum:

Total Health Makeover - Archive 1,

nothing new is moved.

Okay, after all of this, does it seem to you the problem is with our hacked version of UBB 5.47d? Is it something simple I'm doing wrong? Any help or advice you can suggest will be appreciated.

Thanks,

John <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Most hacks shouldn't interfere with Ron's utility... but I'm not exactly an expert at using it (as I'm still stuck using the version he released very, very long ago). You might want to get in contact with him to see if he's encountered this error before.

Thanks Charles,

I posted over in the code hack forum.

Best,

John