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[Kaze]

@Gandalf

Can't we just go back to our old forum back in 2008/2009? We don't need these flashy features a forum is simply designed for typing and posting videos and photos. AFAIK, Search function worked perfectly before this current forum design.

[Brian]

It's not because of the forum design otherwise we wouldve changed it already..

[Brian]

So that's why the forum just went down? 

No the forum itself and occasionally the host just need a break now and then and are down for a few minutes.
The thing that crashed us previously as the smf search which has been hard disabled.

[Axison]

Actually, i was looking at Aragorn's profile, i went to his posts and it winded up crashing the forum. 3 times. You might wanna look into that. The forum slows down and/or crashes when you click on your stats/posts on your or someone else's profile.

[Brian]

Actually, i was looking at Aragorn's profile, i went to his posts and it winded up crashing the forum. 3 times. You might wanna look into that. The forum slows down and/or crashes when you click on your stats/posts on your or someone else's profile.

This is just local it doesn't crash the forums for everyone. I've noticed this too when doing forum maintenance but sadly there's nothing I can do with the access I currently have as it's probably an issue with the Base or just the size of the forums

[SugarD]

Sadly, enabling the default search of SMF will keep crashing the forums. I had quite an extended chat with Gandalf about it, around a week or two ago. And because of the scale of our forums, SMF just can't handle the pressure and fails, crashing the whole forums in mean-while.

That just does not make any sense. There are tons of SMF-based forums across the internet MUCH larger than Argo's that have no problem with search functions on lower-end hosting machines. (Some are even using shared hosting services). This has to be something internally broken, either in the database, the files, the settings, or some sort of mixture thereof.

Why isn't the actual issue at hand being dealt with directly? If it can't be fixed, wouldn't it make more sense to salvage what is possible and reinstall with a new database, importing the non-broken data or transfer it over? This new search function is only bypassing the actual issue that still exists, and could very well affect other portions of the forum that have yet to be discovered.

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Large_forums
Three out of the top five largest known forums using SMF have the native search function not only running, but working. Only one has opted to use a custom Google Search, (of which may be for website integration), and only one has it completely disabled, (although that is only tested from a Guest view, and may be available to logged in users).

[Kaze]

It's not because of the forum design otherwise we wouldve changed it already..

Then why was the search function working properly pre-the new forum design? My theory is that minimizing the features in the forum will give extra resources for the search function to work. I may be talking gibberish since I have no clue about coding, I'm just thinking from a logical point of view.

[Mark]

Then why was the search function working properly pre-the new forum design? My theory is that minimizing the features in the forum will give extra resources for the search function to work. I may be talking gibberish since I have no clue about coding, I'm just thinking from a logical point of view.

He already told you it has nothing to do with it, it makes no sense as they are two things completely different, search issues are not related to design of the forum. I'm of the idea that it is a database issue but as i'm not a Webmaster nor a wizard i will let who is aware of the problems describe the situation.

[Stivi]

The forum slows down/crashes every time you look up someone's posts, and it did the same with searching. Maybe there's a problem in retrieving data?

[SugarD]

The forum slows down/crashes every time you look up someone's posts, and it did the same with searching. Maybe there's a problem in retrieving data?

That could be possible. The forum has been modded so many times over the years that there could be things still hidden in the database that it is trying to pull up which are no longer relevant or used.

[Kaze]

He already told you it has nothing to do with it, it makes no sense as they are two things completely different, search issues are not related to design of the forum. I'm of the idea that it is a database issue but as i'm not a Webmaster nor a wizard i will let who is aware of the problems describe the situation.

Clearly it has something to do with it since it worked perfectly before this forum update but I think SugarD answered my question

The forum has been modded so many times over the years that there could be things still hidden in the database that it is trying to pull up which are no longer relevant or used.

[Brian]

As I previously stated, I do not have the access to look deep in to the forum code and find any issues. After browsing through the interwebz, and talking to Gandalf it was quite clear that a large amount of other forums also have issues with the forums crashing during a search being made. I will run a maintenance over the forums tomorrow when I wake up, But looking in to the database/ code properly is up to Gandalf or Teddy as they're the only one with proper access to such files.

[Adam]

Actually, i was looking at Aragorn's profile, i went to his posts and it winded up crashing the forum. 3 times. You might wanna look into that. The forum slows down and/or crashes when you click on your stats/posts on your or someone else's profile.

Actually, any attempt of viewing any old topic crashes the forum.

[SugarD]

After browsing through the interwebz, and talking to Gandalf it was quite clear that a large amount of other forums also have issues with the forums crashing during a search being made.

Where did you find this information from? If it was large forums affected, (as previously thought was what was intended by earlier statements), then it has already been proven not to be correct. Now if you mean a large number of forums are experiencing search-related crashes across the internet, that still would not make sense, else SMF itself would be responsible and would have already acknowledged and made known the problem already. I don't see a large number of topics in their support boards about this, nor any announcements regarding such.


As for the resources being reached, SMF typically displays a blank white page when it exceeds its memory limits, (or in some cases simply times out the page's connection). Sometimes PHP will also display this problem, but only if the PHP error messages are enabled. A complete and total crash has to be something far beyond a simple memory limit problem.