Search box does not work

[mooncavecrystals]

I turned the search.php box on so it would be easier for folks to find the crystal or mineral they are looking for. However, no matter what I type in the box, I get a page that says, " There is no product that matches the search criteria." It says it for EVERYTHING. It does not find ANYTHING AT ALL

Why is that? what can I do to fix it?

Thanks so much!

PS I am using Zen Cart 1.3.9h
I have tried turning the box off and then turning it back on. Still does the same thing. If you want to try it to see what I mean, the shop is currently at http://www.mooncavecrystals.com/shopping. The box is on the left at the top.

[mooncavecrystals]

I have read all of the information going back to 2007 and still do not understand how to get the search sidebox to work. Can anyone offer suggestions? or no?

[DrByte]

What's your database collation set to for your products_description table, particularly the products_description column *in* the products_description table? I suspect it's set to something that's not _ci (case-insensitive).

[mooncavecrystals]

where would I find that information?

[DrByte]

phpMyAdmin

[mooncavecrystals]

ok, this is way out of my zone, but I went into phpmyadmi and clicked on products_description. Then I went to the products_description column. All of them say [BLOB and the size of the files ].

does that make sense?

[DrByte]

Hmmm ... no, I would have expected them to be TEXT, not BLOB.

See this image:[scr]http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=9399&stc=1&d=1308801903[/scr]

[mooncavecrystals]

ok, yeah, i see where you are and it does say text. I tried to attach a print screen so you can see what I have, I hope it works.

[mooncavecrystals]

here is the second half. I notice there is a difference in the collation. So would I need to edit that?

[DrByte]

Yes, the collation difference is what's causing your search to break.

Click the "pencil" icon ("Edit") to the right of the products_name line, and on the next screen under Collation, choose utf8_general_ci from the pulldown and click Save.
Do the same with products_description line.
Then click the "Operations" tab and under Collation choose utf8_general_ci from the pulldown there as well, and click the Go button below it.