I went to look for a thread of mine from June-ish 2012. I connot find it, and in fact there is a great deal I can't find.

During the search, two things worried me.

Using terms I'm 99.999% sure I used in the thread I'm looking for, I get nothing.

I clicked on my user name in the upper right corner, next to "Notifications. This brings up a list of recent threads I've had content in.

I scroll to the bottom, clicked "More Activity" I think 4 or 5 times, and after that filled, was told there were "No more Results". With 14 replies, 354 views and goes back only 4 weeks...

oh oh.. I've had many many many more....

Second I went to advanced search. Entered nothing but my User Name in that field, (with exact name checked), Find posts = "Any Date", nothing checked

on the "Search In" boxes, clicked "Search now" and I only get 14 posts... First six are up to two weeks old then three from 2011, then the rest from 2010, 2009 and one back to 2006

So is it me, or are we missing a bunch of stuff? Can others try the same kinds of searchs and let Mike know what results you get please?

Edited August 12, 201311 yr by zKars

What usually works best for me is to put my search terms into Google and include the phrase site:classiczcars.com

I have a much greater percentage of useful hits that way.

Steve I agree,and I typically do this for her and hybridz (their search functionality has deteriorated badly) but our search has to have basic functionality that works and gets the right results for trivial searches.

Hopefully Mike can finger this out.

Good find! It looks like I need to rebuild the search index after we moved servers. Sorry about the confusion, I'll have the search index rebuilt tonight. I can't do it now because it may take a few hours to run and I'm on the road. They say it should be done while the site is offline as to not interrupt the process. I'll run it tonight from my hotel room.

m

Ok did a little more digging while I am on a layover in SLC (late airplane). Anyway, you can do an advanced search here: Advanced Search - Classic Zcar Club

Put your username in the correct field and make sure you select "all types" and then click submit. The system will find all of your posts. I see a few from 2012 in there currently.

m

Thanks Mike!

Have a great trip. Don't ya just love airports?

Hi Jim,

Here is a power user way to search

If you have chrome type the following in the address bar, otherwise type it on the google seacrh page:

site:classiczcars.com zKars

The site: operator only searches the site you specify (note no space after the colon).

You can add whatever search items in the list like:

site:classiczcars.com zKars transmission 5 speed

Google also has an advanced search filter where you can enter a date range but I can not find an operator for it

You could try

site:classiczcars.com zKars June 2012

Mike I saw the "re-indexing" message this morning. Thanks for that.

I tried the same searches again just now, but got the same trucated results as the other day. I did check off the "all items" for the searches this time.

The" my activity" listing only goes back 4 weeks, and the advanced search with only my user name and all items checked gave me only15 results. The message was " 1- 15 of 16 results" (strange on it own...)

Hey, I just tried it Advanced Search again and the new re-index has gone all the way back to posts from 2006. See screenshots.

Here's the advanced options I picked:

And here are the results.

I also tried the Google search option (upper right header, under the Direct Sponsor banner). And it also came up with items from back in 2006 as well. Here's a link to the Google search options: zkars - Google Search

It's got about 10 pages of search results. I suggest trying your search using the Google option, it might be easier to find it.

Mike:

I think I understand the problem now. You get exactly the same list of results that I do.

This is NOT what I expect as a result however. I was expecting a list of ALL threads that I have posted in, not a list of only those threads THAT I STARTED.

Searching for me typically would be based on two piece of information. Some string I expect to find in the posts ("headlight relay"), and quite often a second piece, such as a username (Zsondabrain) that I know was likely involved in the posting of stuff related to that first search string to help narrow the results. I sure don't want just threads STARTED by him. I'm searching, I don't want restrictions that aren't stated to reduce the threads I'm expecting.

It seems that Google based searches are still the most powerful way to find things on this site and I'm perfectly fine with that. I sure don't want you to spend significant amounts of time trying to improve the search functions within the site if they would all be eclipsed by what's possible from outside via google or similar. Why not just give us a page of common search commands to use in google or we'll start a thread with search methods that each of us finds powerful as we use Google or similiar to find things. If the site doesn't inherently have good search capability, then promote ways that do.

I can't overstate how important good search functionality is. The value of this forum is in the archives and being able to find what you need when you are responding to someone's request for help.

Anyway, spend time on this "DataBase error" issue instead and forget this prattle. Plagued me this morning again, kept me unable to access here for over 30 minutes. Happened when I first typed all this and hit "Post" then it wouldn't come back for over 30 minutes.

Thanks for all you do.