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Problems with the Search tool, Searching old messages finds zero results
 
#1
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I appear to be missing something very simple and obvious about doing a search for a specific word in older messages.  My search finds zero results, which is not correct.  When I ran a test by searching for a very common word that appears in many, many messages, it also found zero results.

I have been using TheBat! for many years, starting with version 2, and am currently using version 8.  In the past I have successfully used the Search tool, but it has been over 5 years since I have done so, and I seem to have forgotten something important about the process.  I have gone to the RIT Help information about the Search tool and have compared the information there with what I am doing, which looks to be identical.

I initially checked only the specific folder in which I would expect to find the message I am seeking.  I typed my search word in the first of the criteria boxes and clicked Start.  When that  found nothing, I checked the Inbox, which automatically checked all of the folders under it and tried again, which still found no results.  I have gone to Advanced Search and flagged the search to look in every place offered (Title, Text, etc.).  

I am assuming that if I always get zero results, there is something simple that I am failing to do, even though I have compared my search configuration with the Help information multiple times.  Can anyone provide a suggestion?

Thanks in advance for your help,
- Tom -
 
 
 
#2
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Leave everything in the Advanced tab off.

In the Options tab, did you set the first search criterion to:

 "TEXT"  -  "Contains"  -  "<your keyword here>"  ?
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#3
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Leave everything in the Advanced tab off.

In the Options tab, did you set the first search criterion to:

 "TEXT"  -  "Contains"  -  "<your keyword here>"  ?

Yes, that was the configuration I tried first.  When that failed, I tried every variation that I could see.

I just repeated my test with a common word (Library) as the first search criterion and that criterion set to "Text contains".  I verified that everything in the "Advanced" tab was unchecked, clicked the "Select All" button, and then clicked the "Start" button.

The result was "No message loaded".

- Tom -
 
 
 
#4
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Have you checked the integrity of your message base using Folder| Maintenance Center ?

Is this account POP3 or IMAP, and if it's the latter have you downloaded the messages to your computer?
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#5
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Have you checked the integrity of your message base using Folder| Maintenance Center ?

Is this account POP3 or IMAP, and if it's the latter have you downloaded the messages to your computer?

I just ran an integrity check and the system said that everything is normal except for the following error messages:


    Folder \\Tom Suter\Inbox\Photography\Minolta checked, 1 broken messages reported, 2,596 messages recovered
    Old message base is renamed to C:\Users\E T Suter\AppData\Roaming\The Bat!\Tom Suter\Inbox\Photography\Minolta\MESSAGES.BCK
    Unrecoverable parts saved into the following files:
    C:\Users\E T Suter\AppData\Roaming\The Bat!\Tom Suter\Inbox\Photography\Minolta\part0001.bin



    Folder \\tomsuter13@gmail.com\Outbox checked, 0 broken messages reported, 0 messages recovered
    ERROR: Message base file does not exist
    Folder \\tomsuter13@gmail.com\Sent Mail checked, 0 broken messages reported, 0 messages recovered
    ERROR: Message base file does not exist

This is not surprising.  I have never sent outgoing mail from my gmail account


I also had the error message:

         ERROR: Unlisted error FFFFFF85


I just tried another search but with the gmail account excluded from the search.  The result was identical.

The account is POP3.

My standard procedure has always been to download all incoming messages to my computer for reading, and delete them from the server automatically after downloading.

- Tom -
 
 
 
#6
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It's a mystery to me why it won't work, Tom! If I think of something else that might cause it, I'll get back to you here.
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#7
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Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
It's a mystery to me why it won't work, Tom! If I think of something else that might cause it, I'll get back to you here.

Thank you very much for trying to help.

I do online product support in a different industry, and I know personally how hard it is to solve problems with a written description by the person who has the problem.

= Tom -
 
 
 
#8
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What version of The Bat?

I recently upgraded to 9.2.2 because I was reporting other issues and wanted to do so from the latest version. Today I was searching for something in the body and it was finding nothing even though I was sure it was there. I gave up and found it a different way.. I'm too sleepy to do any experiments right now, but your report makes me suspect this is a recently introduced bug.

Edward
 
 
 
#9
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I'm using 9.2.3 with no problem in search.
 
 
 
#10
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I am using Version 8.8.9

= Tom =
 
 
 
#11
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I just did a very simple search. Selected and copied a two-word phrase from one email, did Tools->Search, pasted the phrase next to "text contains", clicked Start. Nothing found.

This is a change, since I've used search often and successfully.

I have all mail in this folder downloaded. However, it appears to me that TB always calls the server to do searches in IMAP folders. (I conclude this because searches on local folders are much faster, like an order of magnitude or more.)

When I go to webmail and do the same search, it succeeds. However, I have no way of knowing whether the webmail client uses the same search protocol as a remote IMAP client. (It's certainly a great deal faster.)

Edward
 
 
 
#12
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I just got a reply from support. If it's an IMAP folder, "contains" will call the server to do the search, and "match" will do the search locally. I tested my searches using "match" and they work correctly. Since I have TB options set to download all email (headers and body) immediately, the simple solution for me is to use "match" -- and it's about ten times as fast for me. I've been wanting for years to force a local search instead of server search, and now I know how. (I have not tested a mix of "contains" and "match" conditions, but for me it isn't going to matter.)
Wish this were documented ...

I still don't know why my server searches are failing. I doubt the problem is on the server, as my server is fastmail.com, and a search failure there would be affecting a lot of people. Also when I search using webmail, there's no problem. But again it doesn't matter to me, now that I know how to force a local search.


Edward
 
 
 
#13
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Very interesting Edward, thanks for reporting back. Does Support know that it doesn't work as expected with Fastmail?
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#14
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Still no success for me.

I tried using "match" and using "contains".  I also tried using "doesn't match" and "doesn't contain".  Zero results.

In each case I got "No message loaded".  Is it possible that this message does not mean that The Bat found no results, but means that The Bat never loaded a message to scan because I made an error in defining the Search?  I do not see how that is possible, but I also do not see any other possible errors.

- Tom -
 
 
 
#15
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Edgar Suter wrote:
In each case I got "No message loaded".  Is it possible that this message does not mean that The Bat found no results, but means that The Bat never loaded a message to scan because I made an error in defining the Search?

I suspect that the "No message loaded" error is caused by some kind of indexing error in your message base. But I don't understand how such an error could affect multiple folders in multiple accounts.

Something that I would try, though mainly out of curiosity:

- Create a new Common folder (Folder | New | New Common Folder). Hopefully a brand new folder won't be affected by whatever the problem is.
- Drag-and-drop a single message from another account into this new common folder.
- Perform a search in (only) this new common folder that looks for a word that you know is present in that message.

(I'd also run CHKDSK in case that the errors that you found earlier in the Maintenance Center were caused by a hardware problem).
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#16
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Quote
Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Something that I would try, though mainly out of curiosity:- Create a new Common folder (Folder | New | New Common Folder). Hopefully a brand new folder won't be affected by whatever the problem is.- Drag-and-drop a single message from another account into this new common folder.- Perform a search in (only) this new common folder that looks for a word that you know is present in that message.
 
 
 
#17
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That worked ! Thank you very much for the suggestion !

Thinking about it, the last time that I had used "Search" was on my old computer, before I moved everything over to a new system several years ago.  I suspect that I made an error in transferring The Bat over to the new system.

Now I need to do some research to try to determine how to correctly move everything into a new folder that can be searched.

Thank you again for the suggestion.

- Tom -
 
 
 
#18
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Good!

You can click on an account in the Account Tree and press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-L to have The Bat re-scan it for any missing folders (and reinstate those if found).
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#19
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Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Good!You can click on an account in the Account Tree and press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-L to have The Bat re-scan it for any missing folders (and reinstate those if found).
I did that, and it said that it found one missing folder.  When I did it a second time it said that it found Zero missing folders, so I assume that it thinks things are fixed..

However, a Search still does not work.  :-(

- Tom -
 
 
 
#20
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Daniel van Rooijen wrote:
Very interesting Edward, thanks for reporting back. Does Support know that it doesn't work as expected with Fastmail?
Oops, I dropped out ...

I just installed v9.2.5 and no longer have trouble with search/contains (though from now on I'll be using match because it's so much faster). So clearly RItlabs fixed something, whether it was in response to my report or to other evidence.

Edgar wrote "I tried using "match" and using "contains".  [...] Zero results. [...] Is it possible that this message [means] I made an error in defining the  Search"

It's important to remember that "match" will only search downloaded messages -- it will not force other messages to be downloaded just to search them. In other words, for any folder you want to search using "match": in Folder Properties, IMAP-Specific, Download Preferences:

Enable "download during periodical checks"
Enable "download on Receive New Mail command"
Unread messages: Get Entire Message
Read messages: Get Entire Message

This of course causes a copy of all your email to be stored locally. If you don't want this (which for some of us uses a lot of local storage), then you need to stick with search / "contains". Which as I note above, appears to be fixed in v9.2.5.
 
 
 
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