Webhelp Search Function Not Working

[tailur2]

My Search function on my webhelp is not working for some users. Some users get the search box when they select search and some just get the word "Loading" but the search window never loads. I'm guessing this might be a corporate server issue within my company but I thought I would ask here if anyone else has encountered this problem.

Thanks,
Tailur2

[RamonS]

Welcome to the forums!

We most likely need some more information to give some better clues. Do you see any errors in the web server log file for users accessing the search ? Does a refresh of the entire page make the search work? Do the users have JavaScript enabled in their browsers? Which browser (name and version) are used? Is it the same problem on the client systems when different browsers are used (such as Opera, Firefox, Chrome)?

[tailur2]

I publish to a FTP site and our Corp Web Systems group uploads so I don't have access to the web server log file. Refresh does not help. Closing the browser and re-opening does not help. I am having Java issues with my computer and I'm one of the ones that can't see this. That might be the issue. I've contacted my IT group about my java problems. Once they fix my Java so that I can get into another program that uses it, maybe my search will work. I'm currently on IE 6.0.2900.2180. I'll have to go out to the floor and check some of the other users that can and can't access to see what version of IE they have.

Here are my Java options from my browser, would one of these be causing the problem?

Java (Sun)
- Use JRE 1.6.0_12 for <applet> is checked
Microsoft VM
- Java console enabled is NOT checked
- Java logging enabled is NOT checked
- JIT compiler for virtual machine enabled is checked.

Any help would be appreciated. I'm pretty good at content but the inner workings are not my strong point.

Thanks,
Tailur2

[tailur2]

Forgot to also add, I do get a line at the bottom of my browser -

javascript:void(0);

for the search function.

Thanks,
Tailur2

[Richard Ferrell]

Sounds like it could be an issue with your browser, If you run the help locally does it search? if you try a different browser such as Firefox does it work?

[RamonS]

IE 6 is quite old and known to be a very problematic web browser. Is that by choice or does the company IT policy not allow the use of IE7 or any more functional browsers? And just to be sure, anything else works fine? Only search is causing problems?

[tailur2]

The company uses IE6 because a lot of our programs are written for this and have not been updated to use newer versions. However, we can use Firefox. I downloaded Firefox and was able to get into the search with no problem. Everything else works fine. Search is the only thing causing problems when using IE6. I'm going to re-publish my target and have the IT person reload. This wasn't an issue Friday and she did load new content for me over the weekend, so maybe something hiccuped along the way. If that doesn't fix it, I'll just tell my users to use Firefox. Thank you for all your help.

Thanks,
Tailur2

[RamonS]

Well, that is what happens when apps are written for a browser that gives a damn about standards. People keep using that browser and the good stuff doesn't work. You might want to take a look at the Firefox extension IEtab (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419). That loads the IE rendering engine in Firefox so that the IE-only apps as well as the help can be used from within the same browser.

That said, did it ever work using IE6? Is this search not working something that happened recently? What you can also try is to clean the output folder in Flare, recompile, then have everything replaced on the server, then have users clear the browser cache and then try again. Maybe IE cached something bad and insists on using that.

[tailur2]

Yes, it worked Friday but not today. But, good news, problem solved. When I went back to my IT person to reload, the little light bulb must have gone off in her head. She said that if it was working for some users and not for others on the same browser version then the issue had to be on her end. Evidently we have 2 production servers and she must have only pushed it to one. She repushed the files and everyone can now search again.

I appreciate all your help and thanks for the firefox info. I'm going to try that.

Thanks,
Tailur2