DJGold

jeaniec · Joined: July 14th, 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Sedona, AZ

Hi!
The email thing worked great!
The only little problem was the first page of entry--it already had prescott, az typed in so I clicked on go. Instead of going to the djs in prescott, it went to the map of the u.s. for me to have to click on az and then scroll down the list of cities to get prescott. I thought the first page's search would help me avoid going through the other two steps. Just thought you should know.
Great job on the site, though!
Jeanie

CJ Greiner

Hi Jeanie,

Hmmmm... that IS odd.

That form is supposed to be automatically filled in from your last successful search. (A cookie helps to "remember" it).

When you first start a search, the program looks for anything in the database that is like what you searched for -- it ignores capital letters, and in some cases ignores the "," comma depending on the search. If the search is successful, it properly capitalizes the City, State and puts it in the cookie for future visits to the site.

So... it SHOULD have been correct!

Even now, when I put that in the search engine and click on GO, it goes straight to the results... Even when I close the browser then re-open it, it displays: Prescott, AZ.
When I click on it, I'm taken straight to (YOUR) search results page.

Is it working for you now, or is it still going to the National search page?

jeaniec · Joined: July 14th, 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Sedona, AZ

It's working now--don't know why it did what it did this morning. I think my mac acts up now and again, although since the word prescott was already in the search box, the cookies must have beed enabled....
:oops:

JC

CJ Greiner

Actually, I don't think it was you, or your Mac!

Most of the operations for this discussion forum and the search engine require immediate response from the Database.

The programmers for the basic functions of this board ( http://www.phpBB.com ) made it so that it would "crash hard" and print a simple error message on the screen. Not very effective and only useful to the webmaster if he's the one who encounters it. Completely useless to anyone else.

I've done a lot of mods to the board... but haven't improved it's response to DB connection failure.

However: The DJGold search engine is different: in most cases, if it fails to connect to the database, it'll still show something to the guest.
In your case, the program worked by reading the cookie and placing the last search info into the search box for you (pretty convenient, eh? :lol: ).
BUT, when you hit "GO", it then required the program to connect to the Database to find the results for your search.
=> I think it failed to connect.
Since it didn't find anything, it assumed that you entered something that it couldn't recognize (City and State), so it sent you to the page where you could enter your state, then to your city.
When it tried searching for your query again... it was able to connect (this time) to the Database and returned your results successfully.

(I think that's what happened...?!? )

Not perfect... but better than printing a "blank screen" with an error message on it! :D

==================
On that note: I've noticed a few connectivity problems over the past few weeks when I review the logs.
Because of that, I've initiated a request to place the website on a newer/faster server.
By next week sometime -- hopefully -- these type of problems will be just a memory.

We'll see!