Search has been disabled

As a temp. measure to try and lock down (or ideally, eliminate) the cause of what's been bringing Bulba server 1 down repeatedly the past couple of weeks, I have disabled searching on the forums entirely. If this doesn't help, I'll re-enable it within the week. If it does help, then we'll hold off re-enabling search until we've moved to a new search platform. That was already on the cards for mid-December anyway, so that's not too far off.

....though, if we decide to run a scavenger hunt contest on the forums this December, having search off might make it a bit more interesting. ;)

Seriously, please be patient guys. For some odd reason, BMGf actually causes more server load at times than Bulbapedia, which is a bit rediculous. I'm pretty sure it's got to do with the search, but with both our techs currently absent (one on holidays, the other had his laptop die on him the other day), we can only put a band-aid on things for the time being.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I've noticed that if I try to search anything, it's always taken 2-3 minutes to load, so it puts a lot of stress on the servers.
Thanks, Archaic!

I always wondered what caused the forum errors.

This explains a LOT of stuff, also, take any measure you need to in order to fix our beloved forum.

It certainly seems to me like the search function could have something to do with it, since at times, it takes upward of several minutes like Croag said. Thank you! :)

Ha! Sometimes the search even just quits without doing anything. I should've figured it was it, though. I would be betting it has something to do with the search optimization, though IIRC that was only disabled for Album Images. Would be ironic if that alleged faster database happened to be just the thing that was slowing everything down. Been wondering what in the hell it could possibly be. Whatever it was, it's probably recent - I'd like to blame vB 4.0 outright, but since it's been installed for quite some time with no problems, it's probably either some sort of caching fatigue (though I really just made that term up), people's activity patterns changing, or a recent add-on.

In other remarks, ironic how Bulbapedia needed like 10x as many servers as the forums - which are on a single server shared with part of BP, but now apparently the forums use even more server load than the 'pede at times. And, bets on how many people are going to walk head-on into the disablement because of the Bridges topic constantly being the first post of this board?

Im really hoping this fixes the forum issues, its not as fun when the forum is down for hours at a time.

It's a little trickier getting around the forums now... but hopefully this'll stop the errors. :|

The Search Bar never helped me, but I can believe that the forums can draw more sever power than Bulbapedia. Infact I thought the forum was on a different set of servers than Bulbapedia.

Wow, that explains everything :eek: Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Truthseeker4449

The Search Bar never helped me, but I can believe that the forums can draw more sever power than Bulbapedia. Infact I thought the forum was on a different set of servers than Bulbapedia.

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It is. Their databases are isolated from each other. That's why, when the forum went down, it didn't take Bulbapedia or Bulbanews with it.

I hate it when others are wrong

I seem to be the only person who can't add (2+2) cuz I don't see how a search function can topple the forums, but then again, I know nothing -shrugs-

I just hope you guys are right and can implement some sort of search-ability back cuz I feel so lost and out of the loop without my What's New button :,(

FYI:

While search is down, this function (which works in real time off AJAX, and doesn't cause server database load) is still available.
Bulbagarden Forums Spy

Let's hope this solves the problem. Really not fun when BMG goes down xD... Imagine it taking more server load than Bulbapedia ^^;; If the search feature isn't causing the server downtime, then I hope you guys will be able to figure out what's causing the problem.