Odd search header behaviour?

[zan_dude]

Ok so i'm just at the point where I think i've got everything sort of working again with some degree of stability and then I go and find out that my search header isn't working as well as it used to do....

Basically when I do a search it's a bit hit and miss as to whether it will work or if it will just time out and show me a blank screen (well blank with just my CSS styled background anyway).

I've tried uploading some files again to replace the old ones which may have got messed up somehow but there's quite a few files i think which can relate to the search header?

Is there anything else I can look or debug for bearing in mind that the cache isn't showing any errors for this.

The only other thing i've changed is that as i have a huge number of products (like probably over 300'000) I had to upgrade my hosting to allow for more php memory as i couldn't get onto apsona shop admin.

I don't think that this would have been a cause of the search though?

I did have to delete some products out the database which weren't being used and i know there will probably be some kind of trail left behind them somewhere in other aspects of the database like attributes.

If anyone could offer a suggestion again i'd be most grateful.

On another note, i'm gradually running out of patience trying to get my cart to how i want it and i'm going to be willing to pay someone a couple hundred dollars to help me tweak up these last few annoying bits once and for all, should i put this in a different section?

Thanks again....

[DrByte]

it will just time out and show me a blank screen

http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?124-blank-page

[zan_dude]

Hi Again Dr Byte,

I had a good look thru that link and i think it's possible something else this time, perhaps something i need to talk to my webhosts about.

As I had to upgrade the php memory limit it involved a transition to a VPS server instead of a shared one which i'm pretty sure must be something to do with this issue as it was fine previously.

I'm wondering if there's still some propagation issue taking place here?

The reason is that sometimes the search seems to work fine for usually the first search I make it seems to be any subsequent searches i make that it timeouts on after about 8 seconds forcing me to hit refresh and then it will give me the result.

Another odd side effect i've noticed now is that if i search for something i've previously searched for before it comes up almost instantly as if it's been super cached or something before?

I thought at first it could just be because of the cache on my browser but i also tried the same search on a different computer (that had never had that search query made on it) and sure enough it came up again instantly.

This would be a very useful feature indeed as once i let people start using the cart they will definitely be searching for similar things and if it did build up some kind of search cache somehow it would be very handy.

What do you think? Could my errors be partly due to the VPS switch propagation?

I still don't get an error in my zen cache for the search timeout but when i check the server logs i am getting a few of these relating to each search....

Timeout waiting for output from CGI script /home/xxxx/public_html/xxxx/index.php, referer: http://xxxx.co.uk/xxxx/index.php?mai...rd=100dp1+alto

Going to have a chat with the server providers now to see what they say....

[DrByte]

it involved a transition to a VPS server instead of a shared one which i'm pretty sure must be something to do with this issue as it was fine previously.

Yes, that sounds logical ... as in your VPS (which is basically a new server) probably hasn't been optimized my actually configuring MySQL to run efficiently. Your server administrator will need to do that.
Curiously though, it's very rare for the typical Zen Cart site to ever require a VPS. I hope they're not ripping you off.

I'm wondering if there's still some propagation issue taking place here?

No, just not optimized.

The reason is that sometimes the search seems to work fine for usually the first search I make it seems to be any subsequent searches i make that it timeouts on after about 8 seconds forcing me to hit refresh and then it will give me the result.

Another odd side effect i've noticed now is that if i search for something i've previously searched for before it comes up almost instantly as if it's been super cached or something before?

Ya, the database will be caching it while it's doing the first search. Then even though it times out on you, the second time you do the search it's suddenly got it fresh in memory. That caching is normal, and happens all the time.

What do you think? Could my errors be partly due to the VPS switch propagation?

Yup. Again, I hope it wasn't a waste of your money. Lots of shared hosts work fine without needing a VPS, even with high memory_limit settings.

[zan_dude]

I'm still trying to get hold of them to grill them about optimization settings....

I probably wouldn't describe my cart as a typical setup due to all the products in there and attributes to go with them...

My current sql DB size is nearly 300mb alone, which probably explains why the attributes_controller.php still doesn't want to load up :) as that table in the database is the largest one.

I'm going to wait and see if the VPS works out any better, if not i'll just go back down to the other one again.

[zan_dude]

Just to give you an update, It was some server side settings, they had to increase the timeout so it's now ok again.

I'll give things a run on the VPS for a while and see how things fair out, there is some useful features which you don't normally get.

[danielosko]

Hi all,

I'm getting a BLANK page when a search does not find a result. This happens in both the regular and advanced search methods. However, it is works fine when a result is found.

My log file says:
[01-Apr-2013 17:57:16] PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/danielos/public_html/includes/languages/english/advanced_search_result.php:137) in /home/danielos/public_html/includes/functions/functions_general.php on line 45

I am using 1.50

Any thoughts on how to repair this?

Thanks,
Dan Osko
http://bubbaspools.com

[Ajeh]

Sounds like a space(s) and/or blank line(s) at the bottom of the language file:
/includes/languages/english/advanced_search_results.php

edit the file and go to the bottom and remove the closing php tag of ?> and see if that fixes the issue ...

[danielosko]

Sounds like a space(s) and/or blank line(s) at the bottom of the language file:
/includes/languages/english/advanced_search_results.php

edit the file and go to the bottom and remove the closing php tag of ?> and see if that fixes the issue ...

BINGO!

Thanks, I had a BLANK line before the ?>

Thanks again,
Dan

[Ajeh]

Thanks for the update that removing the space(s) and/or blank line after the closing php tag ?> corrected this issue (or just removing the closing php tag at the end of the file) ...