Search is not working

[Prokofy Neva]

So search has not worked at all for more than an hour, although searching for a sim by name with the world map is using.

I imagine someone will say this is just "on my machine," but eventually someone else will say wow, it's not working at all.

Then eventually the Lindens may notice it.

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Sadly, you'll not like this, but search is working quite happily for me in Singularity.  The LL-viewer issue could be due to the recent web-upheavals, the LL viewer uses a web-based search that always seems to take ages to wake up, as does trying to open the preferences. I would use the LL viewer more often if they made it more responsive.

 

Just waking up the second machine to try the LL viewer search.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

What happens when, in a browser, this link is followed? https://search.secondlife.com/?query_term=Prokofy+Neva&collection_chosen=people&isLeftColOpen=true&sort=

That seems to work fine for me in Chrome. It should work the same in the web-based-search viewers such as the Linden viewer and Catznip.

[ETA: Yeah, that search worked in the Linden viewer when I tried. Maybe it all cured itself in the half hour or so since the original post? Otherwise I guess it could be some regional thing again.]

Edited September 3, 2020 by Qie Niangao

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Oh dear, search works fine in the LL viewer. So maybe it really is ----- (long drawn out drum-roll) --- the OP's machine?

It took a short while before the mini-browser got pictures and text on the screen, and I had to accept a cookie agreement popup, but it found places quite quickly.

There might be some preference settings that have to be tweaked in the web-browser section? ETA just checked and there's just radio-buttons for opening links in the default or built-in web browser which had no impact on search when I toggled it.

I have to say the delay between clicking the search button and the subsequent window clearing from empty black to text and colours would tempt me to cancel the operation and assume search was broken if I was in a bit of a rush or had expectations greater than I already have of the viewer.

 

ETETA I tried Catzip, it was the same as the LL viewer. Just out of interested as well as "Places" I tried the "Web" tab and found that I had to log in before I got Mature and Adult checkboxes to respond. As with the LL viewer I had to agree to cookies.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

What happens when, in a browser, this link is followed? https://search.secondlife.com/?query_term=Prokofy+Neva&collection_chosen=people&isLeftColOpen=true&sort=

That seems to work fine for me in Chrome. It should work the same in the web-based-search viewers such as the Linden viewer and Catznip.

[ETA: Yeah, that search worked in the Linden viewer when I tried. Maybe it all cured itself in the half hour or so since the original post? Otherwise I guess it could be some regional thing again.]

No, it didn't cure itself.

I'm on the SL Viewer so I don't care about what other viewers show you.

This is a pretty big thing to be going wrong with SL, which I have never seen in 16 years.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No, it didn't cure itself.

I'm on the SL Viewer so I don't care about what other viewers show you.

This is a pretty big thing to be going wrong with SL, which I have never seen in 16 years.

Has the situation improved for you since the past 7 hours?

Edit: Oh. I just realized the post I quoted was minutes ago.

People tend to be pretty quick to ask on the forum when stuff isn't working. There are no other threads about this issue, why would we assume at this point that it affects everybody?

Edited September 3, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Prokofy Neva]

Be

10 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Has the situation improved for you since the past 7 hours?

Edit: Oh. I just realized the post I quoted was minutes ago.

People tend to be pretty quick to ask on the forum when stuff isn't working. There are no other threads about this issue, why would we assume at this point that it affects everybody?

Because something this wrong generally does, and I found with search in particular it did for those on the SL viewer.

Possibly related: when I was flying around a certain area of Grote, one you may know well, my anti-virus was triggered. It had some strange malware site. I thought at first this was a URL in the music bar. But this happened on parcels with no music put in or any other device with a forced URL (which I have seen happen in the past in fact, with a certain vehicle that forced passersby to the merchant's website).

So I put in CCCleaner and MalwareBytes, and all that did was simply add another set of messages, one of which was about Dullahan_host.exe  You can Google discussion on the forums in the past about this. Some suggest deleting it. What it shoes is that the "malvertising" is in the SL folder.

So yes, I reinstalled SL completely. In fact, I reinstalled Windows 10 completely because of BDOD also happening.

Now, AVs can prevent you from logging on to SL at all, but this is odd, if it is an AV, it is only blocking search which requires a browser, system or not (I also tried clicking different options re: system browser to open links, default, etc. No change). So what would do that? Possibly some safe search browser function thing. Anyway, I uninstalled those AVs, the AVG that I had was also reinstalled but that has never interfered with SL before. 

Fortunately the Lindens, once they got over the "clear cache" fetish, aren't like the forums, and said they would log on my account as administrators and see what they could find. 

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Oh dear, search works fine in the LL viewer. So maybe it really is ----- (long drawn out drum-roll) --- the OP's machine?

It took a short while before the mini-browser got pictures and text on the screen, and I had to accept a cookie agreement popup, but it found places quite quickly.

There might be some preference settings that have to be tweaked in the web-browser section? ETA just checked and there's just radio-buttons for opening links in the default or built-in web browser which had no impact on search when I toggled it.

I have to say the delay between clicking the search button and the subsequent window clearing from empty black to text and colours would tempt me to cancel the operation and assume search was broken if I was in a bit of a rush or had expectations greater than I already have of the viewer.

 

ETETA I tried Catzip, it was the same as the LL viewer. Just out of interested as well as "Places" I tried the "Web" tab and found that I had to log in before I got Mature and Adult checkboxes to respond. As with the LL viewer I had to agree to cookies.

I'm familiar with the viewer forcing you to log-in (this is a bug on the JIRA) when you try to pull up profiles. It will sometimes force you to do this for "Adult" on search. But this is no search at all, with no option to log in.

Also I can't pull up profiles, either, there isn't any log in option, it's all just greyed out.

BTW, I wonder why LL has to keep asking you to acknowledge these cookies after you log in once.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

So someone might be interested in how I finally got search back.

I kept trying all different things, reinstalling the viewer, uninstalling AVs, changing the options on how the viewer handles links, etc.

I had reinstalled AVG again after a new installation of Windows 10 and thought that might be the culprit. But I don't have the option to block sites checked off, and I don't see that it has blocked secondlife.com anywhere.

I went into Windows Defender, which tells you that AVG has overtaken its functions. But maybe there is something new either in Windows or AVG in the way this works.

So I went to look at the Outbound and Inbound rules. SLVoice is showed as an exception, i.e. not to be blocked, but nothing else from SLViewer.exe etc

So I went in and wrote a rule both for Outbound and Inbound for SLViewer.exe so that isn't blocked and walla, search now works. Go know.

I have never had to fiddle with portals or suspending or changing AVs for years and years with SL. So I am surprised it has suddenly appeared. I don't know why.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Prokofy Neva

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

BTW, I wonder why LL has to keep asking you to acknowledge these cookies after you log in once.

It's not just them, it's everybody, and it's annoying the hell out of me. The BBC news site periodically insists I once again agree to their cookie settings. I suspect it's to do with site revisions or updates that either wipe out saved details or else somehow trigger a "we have to do this because of legislation" thing. I just wish that once they've got your agreement to set cookies they'd sat a dam cookie so they don't have to periodically ask you if it's Ok to set a cookie.

Glad to hear you sorted out the problem.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

46 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

It's not just them, it's everybody, and it's annoying the hell out of me. The BBC news site periodically insists I once again agree to their cookie settings. I suspect it's to do with site revisions or updates that either wipe out saved details or else somehow trigger a "we have to do this because of legislation" thing. I just wish that once they've got your agreement to set cookies they'd sat a dam cookie so they don't have to periodically ask you if it's Ok to set a cookie.

Glad to hear you sorted out the problem.

All cookies expire at some point, anywhere from "when the browser is closed" to "100+ years from now" depending on what that site's programmer has decided.

When you "accept the cookie policy," a cookie is created about that, on your computer. When it expires, you'll get asked again. If you clear your browser's cookies, you'll get asked again.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

All cookies expire at some point, anywhere from "when the browser is closed" to "100+ years from now" depending on what that site's programmer has decided.

When you "accept the cookie policy," a cookie is created about that, on your computer. When it expires, you'll get asked again. If you clear your browser's cookies, you'll get asked again.

No, you get asked again every time you log on, regardless of whether you have cleared your cookies which is not something I compulsively do every day.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

9 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

All cookies expire at some point, anywhere from "when the browser is closed" to "100+ years from now" depending on what that site's programmer has decided.

I want cookies for life, not just Christmas.

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No, you get asked again every time you log on, regardless of whether you have cleared your cookies which is not something I compulsively do every day.

 I got asked on the initial browser startup, then again when I tried the search, and again when I used the built-in browser, plus of course logging into the web site, but I haven't had a repeat. Guessing from what else you've found with the firewalls, are cookies being deleted too soon from your PC?

[Solar Legion]

7 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

I want cookies for life, not just Christmas.

 I got asked on the initial browser startup, then again when I tried the search, and again when I used the built-in browser, plus of course logging into the web site, but I haven't had a repeat. Guessing from what else you've found with the firewalls, are cookies being deleted too soon from your PC?

I have found (now that it works 'properly' for me) that if you log in and set the Remember Me flag on a particular browser, it remembers (In Viewer browser being the exception). The moment I log in on any other browser - be it the same machine or even on a mobile device - the flag/cookie appears t no longer be valid and I have to do so all over again.

The only reason I can see/understand this behavior for the in viewer browser is if each window opened for it has a unique ID that causes it to be treated as a wholly new/different browser.

Putting the above in a less 'confusing' way: It is the sort of behavior I'd expect from swapping from Brave to Vivaldi and going to log in, then coming back to Brave later and logging in.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

16 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No, you get asked again every time you log on, regardless of whether you have cleared your cookies which is not something I compulsively do every day.

I understand you get asked every time, I'm not trying to deny that. But there are others who do not have your problem.

It's possible, for example, that your browser is set to automatically clear its cache/cookies when closed. I'm not saying that it's happening, it's just one of many possible explanations.

[Prokofy Neva]

20 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I understand you get asked every time, I'm not trying to deny that. But there are others who do not have your problem.

It's possible, for example, that your browser is set to automatically clear its cache/cookies when closed. I'm not saying that it's happening, it's just one of many possible explanations.

No, I wouldn't do that because it's precisely the nuisance you say. And I checked and no. It's just part of the glorious bug that keeps asking me to log into profiles, etc. 

[Prokofy Neva]

23 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

I have found (now that it works 'properly' for me) that if you log in and set the Remember Me flag on a particular browser, it remembers (In Viewer browser being the exception). The moment I log in on any other browser - be it the same machine or even on a mobile device - the flag/cookie appears t no longer be valid and I have to do so all over again.

The only reason I can see/understand this behavior for the in viewer browser is if each window opened for it has a unique ID that causes it to be treated as a wholly new/different browser.

Putting the above in a less 'confusing' way: It is the sort of behavior I'd expect from swapping from Brave to Vivaldi and going to log in, then coming back to Brave later and logging in.

No, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. Lindens say this; fanboyz say this; it is NOT TRUE. If it were true, why, the last time I checked REMEMBER ME -- yesterday! -- that would do it, and today I wouldn't be here with this blasted bug again where it asks me to log in to see people's profiles. 

I have set this from the web; I have set it from inside SL; I have set it on Opera, Chrome, Edge -- it NEVER sticks.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

BTW no one seems interested to comment on why you would have to add rules to Windows Defender now to be able to see search and use it, when for 16 years before this, you didn't have to do that. Why?