Why can't I get message search to work?

Started by Blinkin, March 14, 2019, 02:09:21 AM

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Blinkin

I've been trying to find a better way to track down older PM's than going page after page or trying to do a listing by "to" and jumping from page to page until I narrow it down. There's a search messages option, but I've never gotten it to work. Even when trying to search for a message IN my inbox.

I've tried to search by name, by subject, even by keyword and not even exceptionally common words like "the" doesn't get any results. I've never, ever gotten any result fro any search.

So, what am I doing wrong? It's a pain in the ass when someone suddenly reappears with a PM and I'm trying to figure out with what we were talking abour 3 months ago and the name begins with an MC...(for example)
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

Vekseid

Are you unchecking the labels somehow perhaps? Do you use them?

Seems to be working fine for me, so my assumption would be you are doing something to restrict your search somehow.

Blinkin

The only thing I'm touching is the edit field where I enter the search term. Usually a user name, like, for example, "blinkin" without the quotation marks. Then, I click search.

I'll go back and make sure that I'm not checking or unchecking any boxes, but I'm fairly sure that I'm not.
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

SweetSerenade

Quote from: Blinkin on March 14, 2019, 06:44:35 AM
The only thing I'm touching is the edit field where I enter the search term. Usually a user name, like, for example, "blinkin" without the quotation marks. Then, I click search.

I'll go back and make sure that I'm not checking or unchecking any boxes, but I'm fairly sure that I'm not.

When I'm looking for a PM from or two a particular user (since I have my Pms set up on the 'thread' style) I put something common in the first field - and then in the second field with the asterisk, I put their username. Usually, that pulls up every single PM detailing that particular person's interaction with me. You can try that first and see if it works?

Bakemono Shiki RP(Lovely Siggy Layout is thanks to Amaris)

Blinkin

Quote from: SweetSerenade on March 14, 2019, 01:05:49 PM
When I'm looking for a PM from or two a particular user (since I have my Pms set up on the 'thread' style) I put something common in the first field - and then in the second field with the asterisk, I put their username. Usually, that pulls up every single PM detailing that particular person's interaction with me. You can try that first and see if it works?

Ok, oddly enough, I sent myself a PM with just test in both the subject line and in the body. When I searched for the word test and the user name blinkin I got that PM. But, when I try to search for any other user, I get no results, even though I know I've gotten better than 50 PMs from the member and most of them must have the word "the" in it.

Could it be in the time span? From 0 to 9999 should cover the span as I've been here 7 years, 364x7 is just 2548 days... a few more for the two or three months over the 7 year mark. The only difference between the blinkin search and another user name is that the blinkin was sent a few seconds before the search and the others could of been as old as 2,500 days old.
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

SweetSerenade

Quote from: Blinkin on March 14, 2019, 01:58:39 PM
Ok, oddly enough, I sent myself a PM with just test in both the subject line and in the body. When I searched for the word test and the user name blinkin I got that PM. But, when I try to search for any other user, I get no results, even though I know I've gotten better than 50 PMs from the member and most of them must have the word "the" in it.

Could it be in the time span? From 0 to 9999 should cover the span as I've been here 7 years, 364x7 is just 2548 days... a few more for the two or three months over the 7 year mark. The only difference between the blinkin search and another user name is that the blinkin was sent a few seconds before the search and the others could of been as old as 2,500 days old.

It shouldn't matter as far as I know, considering that I can look up messages from when I first joined back in 2013? I've been here about six years and never deleted any Pms... xD so I can still search through everything. Did you check to see if the user's name is still the same? Because that can change sometimes, and that will affect the search?

Bakemono Shiki RP(Lovely Siggy Layout is thanks to Amaris)

Amaris

I think one thing that may help one of your problems is to set your PMs up like a conversation. So that way when you receive a reply to an old PM you don't have to go look for it. It will be right above the current one!

Do you already have it set up that way? If not I can help ya with how to do it. It with make your PMs look more like a 'thread' where one reply will post to the bottom of the rest and so on.


Blinkin

Hmmmm, I hadn't thought of it. In fact, I didn't know that you could do it that way.  If you don't mind giving me directions, I'll give it a try.

A bit of an update. I changed the search from match all words to match any words and got results back on a search, but only for the last few days. The search term was "potential partnership?" which is a subject line that I use when I'm contacting someone about a story concept in a request thread. It's farily common and it should of returned more matches, but any match at all is an improvement. Why this makes a difference is beyond me, but a step in the right direction.
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

AmberStarfire

The way I've found to get them to work is to tick the box that says 'show full message in results' when you're searching. They don't seem to show up otherwise.



Amaris

Sure I can give you directions!

Go to profile and then on the left there should be a 'personal messaging' option. Click that. In that section it should have 'display personal messages' and there is a drop down box. Click that drop down and click 'as a conversation'. Then click 'change profile' at the bottom. That should do it!