Search unreliable

PitaJ

You can redirect the search function to Google, but it won't work for non-public posts. There is also an elasticsearch plugin you might try.

<baris>

Are you on mongodb or redis?

TLINDEN

@PitaJ thanks for your reply, but it's not what I'm asking for I can't use google, of course, and I won't add another plugin which would just add to the already annoying load problem I'm experiencing.

So, I think this is clearly a bug. Whatever the dbsearch plugin is trying to do- it is doing it completely wrong. In fact, I think the index it creates on MongoDB is wrong, since I can reproduce the invalid search results from mongo shell as well:

> db.searchtopic.find( { $text: { $search: "Semmel" }})
[no output]

> > db.searchpost.find( { $text: { $search: "Semmel" }})
> { "_id" : ObjectId("5a9d818cd19a243c1a362c28"), "id" : 1201, [..]

So, only searching topics returns no result and posts returns 1 result. However, in reality there are 3 topics matching the string Semmel:

> db.objects.find( { _key: "topic:178" });
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5a9d818cd19a243c1a362c15"), "_key" : "topic:178", "tid" : 178, "uid" : 3, "cid" : 24, "mainPid" : 1201, "title" : "Semmelknödel ala Tom", "slug" : "178/semmelknödel-ala-tom", "timestamp" : 1520271756137, "lastposttime" : 1520277378816, "postcount" : 7, "viewcount" : 12, "locked" : 0, "deleted" : 0, "pinned" : 0, "upvotes" : 2, "downvotes" : 0, "teaserPid" : "1212" }

> db.objects.find( { _key: "topic:362" });
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5ac49e3cd19a243c1a36e9f3"), "_key" : "topic:362", "tid" : 362, "uid" : 6, "cid" : 29, "mainPid" : 2826, "title" : "Semmelknödelteig", "slug" : "362/semmelknödelteig", "timestamp" : 1522835004299, "lastposttime" : 1522847285369, "postcount" : 4, "viewcount" : 10, "locked" : 0, "deleted" : 0, "pinned" : 0, "teaserPid" : "2840" }

> db.objects.find( { _key: "topic:367" });
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5ac4f7ced19a243c1a36ed50"), "_key" : "topic:367", "tid" : 367, "uid" : 6, "cid" : 23, "mainPid" : "2852", "title" : "Semmelknödel a la Tom...", "slug" : "367/semmelknödel-a-la-tom", "timestamp" : 1522857934277, "lastposttime" : 1522866479077, "postcount" : 20, "viewcount" : 12, "locked" : 0, "deleted" : 0, "pinned" : 0, "teaserPid" : "2907", "thumb" : "", "upvotes" : 2, "downvotes" : 0 }

(and many more posts)

What is weird as well is the index language setting: "default_language" : "english", but I'm using german as forum language.

<baris>

@tlinden what does the following query return? db.searchtopic.find({id: 178});

randoms

I'm using chinese as forum language and I'm experiencing the same problem.

TLINDEN

@baris said in Search unreliable:

@tlinden what does the following query return? db.searchtopic.find({id: 178});

@baris this::

> db.searchtopic.find({id: 178})
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5a9d818cd19a243c1a362c1c"), "id" : 178, "content" : "Semmelknödel ala Tom", "cid" : "24", "uid" : "3" }

<baris>

@tlinden ok so it is in the searchtopic collection, does searching for it like this find it?

db.searchtopic.find( { $text: { $search: "Semmelknödel" }}

I don't think full text search supports partial word matches right now. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44833817/mongodb-full-and-partial-text-search?rq=1

I will hopefully add language support to dbsearch plugin if mongodb is used https://github.com/barisusakli/nodebb-plugin-dbsearch/issues/33

TLINDEN

Ah, that explains it! Searching for Semmelknödel reveals 1 topic and 2 posts (which is correct). So, we have to seach for whole words until partial matches are supported sometime.

Ok, still a little annoying for the girls, but I'm going to blame you

However, thanks for clarifying @baris !

best,
Tom

<baris>

@tlinden Yeah I agree it's a bit annoying, there is an issue for it here https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-15090 so it might be supported in the future.

<baris>

[email protected] adds support for different languages. You can switch to German and see if it improves your results.

Juan G.

You can also try Solr search for NodeBB.

First install solr-jetty (jetty is lighter and has better performance than tomcat):

sudo apt-get install solr-jetty

(This also automatically installs the many needed dependencies, basically Java packages).

Optional: Temporarily open port 8080 if you want to see Solr admin (not needed):

http://example.com:8080/solr/

(Port 8080 worked for me; if not, try 8983).

Then install NodeBB's Solr plugin:

NodeBB Admin > Extend > Plugins > Find Plugins > nodebb-plugin-solr > Install

Then activate the plugin, restart NodeBB, reload admin page, and go to:

Plugins > Apache Solr

Configuration:

Host: localhost
Port: 8080
Path: /solr

Save Settings

Reload NodeBB and admin page.

Connected

Indexing Enabled

Rebuild Search Index

Disable port 8080 (or 8983) on firewall for security.

It works well.

TLINDEN

Thanks for the tutorial, but I won't do that, it's like we say in Germany: "mit Kanonen auf Spatzen schiessen" (shooting with canons on sparrows). Also, I can't install software, because I'm on a shared system w/o root.

best,
Tom

sharonyue

@Juan-G I found it does not work with https, do you have any suggestions?