XenForo search errors instead of reporting the search is too long

[Xon]

Affected version

2.2.13

XenForo generates an \XF\Entity\Search record for search once done, which has a length limit of 200 characters for the search keywords. However, searches are sent to the search backend before attempting to save the search results.

This means the search can potentially send too long a query to the backend and will instead log a server error instead of reporting to the user the search was too long.

This is most noticeable with the elasticsearch backend, a keyword search which is quite long but just under the limit and then a user who can't view a large number of forums when searching for body+title (ie not title-only), and also then uses a number of facet search terms.

Related XFES error:

X

Thread 'XFES's getMaxKeywords is not effective depending on the number of fields being searched'

Jan 9, 2024

ElasticSearch exposes a "max clauses" (under a bunch of names) which indicates how many search terms can be used.

XenForo applies this to the search keywords as-is, the trouble is this doesn't capture that simple_query_string decomposes to a number of search clauses based on the fields being searched. ie "max clauses" reports 1024, but XenForo searches "message" and "title" means the max keywords is much lower. Facets search (ie allowed forums, by user list, etc) also count to the "max clauses" count.

And I'm positive how Elasticsearch counts these things varies depending on...

• Xon
• Replies: 1
• Forum: Enhanced Search bug reports

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