Linear Search error message

davidtg · Post by **davidtg** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 6:11 pm

Hi,

I'm getting something I've not seen before:
"115 /search:1611 Query 'xxxx' would require a linear search".

The search script is customized with a radio buttons to allow users to switch databases to search either the profile's db or a main db that indexes several sites. The error shows when switching to the main db.

Oddly we use the same script with several different profiles and only one of the profiles gives the error when switching to the main db. Also all functioned fine and without error until today.

Any thoughts on this issue? Thanks, David

davidtg · Post by **davidtg** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 9:24 pm

I'm sure your correct but there is something else going on because I can search the same term on the database without error when Webinator uses a different profile.

Maybe my code to switch databases which is inserted after the standard code gets the profile's info is not so good though it had appeared to work fine until now:

<A Name=init>
....snip....
<IF $depts eq "all">
<$swpr = "sphcm"> 
<sql max=1 "select String db_sphcm from options where Profile=$swpr and Name='SS_db'"></sql> 
<$dbdir = $db_sphcm>
</IF>
<DB = $dbdir>
...snip....

All our profiles use the same above code and all but one seems to switch and search without error on the switch. This error has got me quite stumped. Maybe when the refresh walks happen tonight it will magically go away. David

davidtg · Post by **davidtg** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:56 pm

Let me try to give a bit more info - I've customized our setup a bit in that we've got 6 profiles - 5 departments and 1 main. The 6 profiles search their own databases without error. The main profile walks a superset of sites relative to the 5 other profiles such that I give the option to search their own database or the larger one availabe in the main profile.

We use separate profiles because each department wants their own look and feel search pages. The vortex search script is the same for each profile - only top/bottom html within profile is different.

I'm not seeing any other errors. Why the switch is only affecting one of the profiles is very odd - the search script is the same for all - seems that all should have the same error. Here are two of the links to our department search pages, the top one has the error when you switch to the main database.

http://apps.sphcm.washington.edu/texis/ ... pr=envhlth
http://apps.sphcm.washington.edu/texis/ ... rch?pr=epi

davidtg · Post by **davidtg** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:16 pm

Still stuggling with this one.

I don't want to change the profile=pr (look and feel) but allow the profile to search against another profiles database.

This has been working for all but one of the profiles - which is odd - since all the profiles use the same script file.

I'll work on it some more but may go ahead and start a ticket on this one.

Thanks, David

davidtg · Post by **davidtg** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:23 pm

I've got the error fixed but perhaps only temporarily -

I cloned the problem profile and was able to recreate the error so something in the actual profile seems to be causing the linear search error.

I then cloned a new profile from one of our other ones without the linear query error - duplicated the settings from the problem profile - but no error now.

It be nice to know what possible setting in the profile could create the linear query error when quering against a different DB.

davidtg · Post by **davidtg** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:05 pm

Well its 2+yrs later and I'm working on migrating all our customizations to the search script to the newest versions of the default script file.

Ran into the same error "requires linear search" when my custom code allows for changing the db within a multi-profile setup. Our parent profile indexes all the child sites and each child site has its own profile where they are just indexing themselves. Search form allows a child site to search itself or the parent db for all the sites.

I've confirmed my problem and to clairfy John's last post - the linear search error was happening because the profiles ordered the indexes differently. So when doing this customization I need to make sure all profiles use the same indexes and index order.