How do I allow a 3-character search?
 

Currently my vBulletin won't let me search for anything 3 characters or less.

How can I allow a 3 character search?

Running vB 3.7.3

Thanks in advanced!

AdminCP -> vbulletin options -> Message Searching Options -> Search Index Minimum Word Length

Thank you, I just did that but now when I search for a 3 character word that I know should have results it says nothing found. Why is this?

Do I have to rebuild something?

Thanks.

If you go to Maintenance > Update Counters > Rebuild Search Index, I'm pretty sure that will do what you want.

Just did that, still not coming up with results. In the settings I was told to change in the second post, I noticed it says "MySQL Fulltext has its own minimum word length as well that must be changed at the server level." on the page as well. Is that something I need to do?

This only applies if your using the vbulletin built in default search.

If your using MySQL FULLTEXT search, you need to apply new settings to my.cnf and restart MySQL.

ft_min_word_len = 3
ft_max_word_len = 25

Okay, under my search type it says "Your forum is currently using the Fulltext search engine. "

How would I do what you said above?

Thanks a bunch for your help!

ssh into server.

depending on system

RH, CentOS
nano /etc/my.cnf

Debian
nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Add those two variables i posted above to the [mysqld] section.

ctrl+x
answer yes
hit return

Then type one of the following, again dependent on system.
service mysql restart
service mysqld restart
/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql restart
/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld restart
/etc/init.d/mysql restart
/etc/init.d/mysqld restart

I don't think I have access to do that, I'm on a shared hosting plan from LunarPages. Would I need to contact them?

yes you would.

i doubt they will change it for you tho.

Yikes. Okay, well is there any way I could allow a 3 character search? What about if I use the "built in default search"?

u can switch it back to the vb search and set the limit in the admincp as suggested above by banana.

If you know that you'll only have a limited number of three letter words that users would search for, you can put them in the "Words to be Included Despite Character Limit" field. That way your board won't index common words such as "the, for, way, you, can, put, not, fix, yes, and" and so on.

Is there some sort of a hack to get round this?

What do you mean? If you're using the default vB search, you just have to put the three-letter words that you want added to the search index into the field that I mentioned, "Words to be Included Despite Character Limit".

For instance, I run an automotive/offroad forum, so I have things like O2, ATV, ABS, and fan included in the search database while my minimum character limit is set to 4 characters. So those words are still able to be searched for even though my limit is 4. No hack necessary.