"Sorry but you cannot use search at this time..."

[equinox]

An error message that I very often see on this forum is:
"Sorry but you cannot use search at this time. Please try again in x seconds."

I understand the purpose of this (to stop bots, or DOS/denial-of-service attacks), but it seems like you really have tightened the limits a bit too far. I think doing a few searches in a couple of tabs is reasonable -- especially if I'm a logged-in user.

If it isn't going to cost somebody some serious money, then could you relax the search limits a little bit, maybe? Thank you.

[PeterJ]

If you log in @equinox the time is much shorter. Logged out users wait 30 seconds.

These are the default phpBB settings.

[equinox]

Yep, I think the issue is that I was doing two searches close together. (I didn't even use the search box. I think I was merely clicking user names to look at their history, which triggers a search.) I feel like the phpBB rules were invented for a much earlier time, where we didn't have multiple tabs in a browser. 30 seconds is quite a long time. I could load about one sixth of Bubble Bobble in that time.

A good rule might be (for example): within any half hour you can do 20 searches. It doesn't matter if you do all of them in the first minute. But if you do more than 20 searches in half an hour, you get stopped. Just a thought. Make sense?

P.S. If the response is "phpBB doesn't support that, though" (which is reasonable) -- then if you removed the 30-second thing entirely, would you be flooded by bot spam searches? Could we just try it for a while? I've seen this error a lot, and I've never tried to abuse the site.

[PeterJ]

It does @equinox, but phpBB doesn't have those sorts of granular settings

[R-Tape]

30 seconds is quite a long time. I could load about one sixth of Bubble Bobble in that time.

I usually fall foul of that, so I just log in. As Peter says the time limit is way shorter - I don't know what it is but I've not been timed out yet while being logged in.

[PeterJ]

I've checked the settings @equinox, and for guests it's 30 seconds, and for logged in users it's 10 seconds. Considering the load searches place on the server I think this is fine and inline with other small community sites that use shared hosting. The recommendation on the phpBB forums for small sites is to turn off search for guests, but I don't want to do this.

You will just have to work slower

[spider]

From a different viewpoint, the search settings appear sane. It is quite resource expensive to search via mySQL , Sphinx used to be OK and I think ElasticSearch is too but I've little experience with those other than the former would allow a lower number of characters to be searched for,

30 Seconds is 'fast enough' for a guest I would of thought personally.

[equinox]

I am surprised! But it's all good. Thanks for nice and honest reply.
I will have to stalk slower
MERGE ""

[spider]

I am surprised! But it's all good. Thanks for nice and honest reply.
I will have to stalk slower
MERGE ""

[C.Born]

i that case
can you have a LONGER RSULT PAGE ???
since else its a WASTE of exact that searchTIME you protect so much
with 10 PAGES off results the results MUST be found and thus the search already SUCCEEDED !!
but
there is that anoying script that blocks the content off this ALREADY FOUND RESULT
so
instead of chopping up every thing, there are TWO solutions possible
have a SINGLE PAGE with results, at least PER 100
or
make sure the list is preserved on the server and then use that PAGE BUTTON as what it is, a next PART OF THE RESULT
which was already found
if you have any kind off reresh becouse the next part off the KNOWN list is needed, then some proirites are wrong
since this is standard BBphp perhaps an admin from here can complain overthere to change some parts
its not a fresh search!
is JUST an next part of the BUFFER!!!!
damn!

[AndyC]

i that case
can you have a LONGER RSULT PAGE ???
since else its a WASTE of exact that searchTIME you protect so much
with 10 PAGES off results the results MUST be found and thus the search already SUCCEEDED !!

Not necessarily, if the underlying search is using OFFSET/FETCH (although MySQL is janky enough I'd be unsurprised if that's suboptimal any way).

[Timmy]

I agree that a search really could return like 20 posts (or even more) instead of just 10. If I need something specific and it's buried in page 7 then it's just a lot of clicks.

Then again I am usually searching for the specific stuff that web bots can't find.

[C.Born]

ok, sytems are smarter and smarter, but then still there has to be a clue about that result else there wont be a "next page"

[flange]

Already mentioned recently here..

viewtopic.php?p=136389#p136389

[1024MAK]

The real problem here, is that many built in functions use the search even though the user or member may not be aware that said function is using the search system.

For example, using the quick link 'active topics' (top left drop down menu) uses the search system.

The second problem is that some other phpBB forums use faster, more powerful servers and have different settings, so members of these forums don't normally experience these problems.

The third problem, and one that I experience occasionally, is that at night at certain times, the site either appears to take longer, gives me the "sorry but you cannot use search at this time", or gives me the "too many connections" message.

Very occasionally the above problems also happen during the day.

Mark

[C.Born]

they have to make a big difference in their approach
that litteraly 2 second "delay" couild have been hidden instead off a total block
if its introusion by a bot then the 2 sec might be enough to check some double domains perhaps
and maybe a small algo that count up wait time instead of just 30 secs
like 5, 15 30 and the first 5 sec can be hidden by an wait icon which will need/cost some server time already

[PeterJ]

As @1024MAK says we use shared hosting which is a cheaper option for smaller sites who don't have a lot of traffic. ZXDB is a relatively big database for this sort of hosting so we need to put restrictions in place. I don't see this changing in the future.

I can fix the too many connections error quickly if I see it (it's just temporarily upping the Cloudflare level and finding the culprit). However I'm not accessing the site all the time. I've increased max connections a number of times and I'm guessing some code may not be releasing the connection. Perhaps I could give a handful of users my mobile number and we could set-up a WhatsApp group so you could alert me. PM me if you could help with this.

If you don't like the wait then please try and make your search more specific where possible.

@C.Born - Can I just check - Are you talking about the forum search results, or the game search. The forum is as rightly say phpBB, but the software search is a designed in house. If you search the forum then make sure you are logged in. Otherwise you do get restrictions.

Post edited 22/02/24