enable 3-letters words in search

[NeXuM]

I can't figure how to enable 3-letters words in search. Everytime i search for a 3-letters word, it returns no result.

- I have enabled mysql full text search
- i have set the minimum length to 3 in vbulletin options
- i have rebuilt search engine in vbulletin's maintenance
- i have edited my.cnf and added "ft_min_word_len=3" (i run a dedicated server)
- rebooted the server after editing my.cnf

WHY it still isn't working ???

[tbworld]

Updated: I was full of crap. I forgot to alter the new mysql to handle full text searches. Works fine.

@nexum .. Works fine in vb4.20. Give JIRA a good check to see if it is a known issue, someone might have posted a fix.

My Test Conditions:
- vb4.2.0 (Unmodified, out of the box)
- Forum Only:
- words: mom dad IBM
- areas: title, post, tags
Rebuilt search indexes --- Just in case.
-----
Modified sql to handle 3 characters. <!-- Forgot this step

Currently on my board we use Sphinx. We wrote our own drivers for Sphinx and have been very pleased. Digital Point sells a Sphinx driver for VB, but I have not tested it, although I am sure it works.

Updated: Apparently vbulletin search can use 'and' 'or' - I probably wasn't familiar enough with vbulletin when I tested it way back then. Oh well! Sphinx has worked well for us.

[NeXuM]

Sorry i just realised i posted on the wrong forum. I run vBulletin 3.6.4. I found many threads that said it was possible to enable 3-characters words in search, but it didn't work for me when i followed instructions.

I never heard of JIRA so it is probably a vb4 feature.

[tbworld]

No problem, I do that all the time!

--------------- Added 15 Jul 2013 at 15:26 ---------------


I never heard of JIRA so it is probably a vb4 feature.

JIRA is the software that vbulletin uses to track bug reports etc. Very useful, takes a bit of getting use to, but then you will really like it. I think on the vbulletin site once you log-in, you can use the menu option 'TRACKER'. There might even be a link from vb.org here. Take the time to learn it, you will save yourself a few headaches.

[Zachery]

You need to rebuild the fulltext indecies, doing a quick repair on the post and thread tables should fix the problem.

If you have a dedicated server, you should really checkout sphinx and save yourself a ton of headaches.

[snakes1100]

Zach, he runs 3.6.4, im not sure if the old code for sphinx on 3.8.x works on 3.6.x, but it may.

[NeXuM]

You need to rebuild the fulltext indecies, doing a quick repair on the post and thread tables should fix the problem.

If you have a dedicated server, you should really checkout sphinx and save yourself a ton of headaches.

awesome ! it fixed my problem. Thank you !

what is sphinx and what ares the advantages ?

[snakes1100]

Sphinx uses a flat file search, were as vbulletin uses a db based search, far less resources needed using sphinx.

There are disadvantages though to using sphinx, as vbulletins search sucks, basically the way it stores its data, sphinx loses the ability to search w/ sorting.

Vbulletin manipulates its sorts.

[Zachery]

The post was in the vB4 section, so I made the suggestion.

[NeXuM]

Since i changed ft_min_word_len to 3 my mysql server kept randomly crashing and i think this is because of the recent change to ft_min_word_len.

Is it possible that ft_min_word_len=3 is causing mysql to crash on a dedicated server (i3 2130 / 2 cores / 8gb ram) ? My forum has 150k posts and the search engine is used quite frequently.

Where can i find documentations/tutorials on the procedure to switch to sphinx search engine ?

[Zachery]

It is possible, If you're on vB4, you'd be best off looking at sphinx from digitalpoint's market. You can either signup for a paid membership, or buy it outright.

[NeXuM]

Sphinx doesnt work with vB3 ?

[Zachery]

You'd have to custom code an application, or do some custom hacking. I doubt the old versions are still working considering how much further sphinx has come since 2006~

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=127868&highlight=sphinx

[NeXuM]

And with fulltext mysql search, i suppose there is no way to limit ft_min_word_len to 4 *but* allow 3 characters search on specific words ?

[Zachery]

Not easily.