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Vendor Search

LovelessLoveless Posts: 1
in Bugs
Hi I am not sure if this classes as a bug but vendor search lately falls over nearly every time you try to search for anything lately with the message "Your Search criteria is too vague. Please refine your criteria and try again" This is naturally worst on Atlantic particularly during prime time and makes pricing items to place on vendors incredibly time consuming.This is not my searching skills I am an experienced trader and know how to find items and have often tried multiple different variations which all fail, as well as talking to other people who are having the same problem.

Thanks for looking.
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Comments

  • KitiaraKitiara Posts: 63
    I'm having this problem regularly on Atlantic as well, using queries that are known to work. It would at least be helpful if, when search is not working properly, the error message indicated as much. Sometimes the "vague" error message is because the search query is indeed returning too many results - but the error message when it's just lost or not returning results should be different. That way, we know it's down and won't waste our time trying. 

    Maybe its server could use a few more hamsters on Atlantic? 
  • DeSuleDeSule Posts: 6
    I'm noticing the same thing.  Searching for "poppie dye" is returning 'too vague'.  Searching "poppie white natural dye" returns the same "too vague" message... that's the literal item name; I can't be more specific.  I agree - I think the issue is the search simply took too long / isn't working, and the "too vague" message is the default error message.


  • CinderellaCinderella Posts: 1,759
    I have been noticing this for awhile, but yesterday it took forever to find Ancient Aquarium Fishing Nets. I only found it by Ancient. And I had to go through every page to find it.


  • MissEMissE Posts: 782
    Agree this is becoming a serious issue. For eg: 

    Search for

    Ash Runic Dovetail Saw = too vague
    Ash Runic Dovetail = too vague
    Ash Runic = too vague
    Ash = don't bother as you get everything from mashed potato
    Ash Dovetail Saw= too vague

    Saw = you find stuff - and obviously you find a gazillion as the search is too broad.
    Dovetail saw will also work (you get just as many entries as you do with saw),

    The first one (Ash Runic Dovetail Saw) should be the one that gets a hit 100% of the time as it is the exact wording on the item.

    Cheers MissE

    For more info about Angelwood Warehouse Events go to the A.W.E Forum
  • MariahMariah Posts: 3,305Moderator
    I tried two of these search for myself.

    I typed in 'dovetail' then I set the minimum price to 5000 - no one is going to be selling crafted tools that high.  I got 4 results, 2 oak dovetail saws and 2 ash.

    I typed in 'poppie' then I set the minimum price to 20,000 to eliminate decorative plants, result bottles of poppie white dye.

    While the search is somewhat quirky just now, it can be convinced to give you the right results. Use the price range to cut out things like crafted tools, legendary repair deeds etc.
  • Uriah_HeepUriah_Heep Posts: 915
    Cool!!!

    Another quirky broken system players get to figure out work-arounds for.

    Has anyone tried it while facing north and eating a donut?  
  • JollyJadeJollyJade Posts: 578
    Mariah said:
    While the search is somewhat quirky just now, it can be convinced to give you the right results. Use the price range to cut out things like crafted tools, legendary repair deeds etc.
    How do you do a price check for SoTs? It plain fails on me even for the exact SoT name.

    Would really appreciate if this gets properly fixed. Half-baked workarounds will only get you that far and won't encourage any fix at all.
    Just a troll who got told by lesser trolls (moderator classification)
  • MariahMariah Posts: 3,305Moderator
    Sorry. Can I, personally,  fix it?  No.
    Can I offer a suggestion to help people find what they want in the meantime?
    Yes.  Sorry. I shouldn't have done that.

    Oh - transcendence sword worked, as did 'transcendence mystic and transcendence eval.


  • Uriah_HeepUriah_Heep Posts: 915
    Mariah said:
    Sorry. Can I, personally,  fix it?  No.
    Can I offer a suggestion to help people find what they want in the meantime?
    Yes.  Sorry. I shouldn't have done that.

    Oh - transcendence sword worked, as did 'transcendence mystic and transcendence eval.




    I will say this:

    Just because it worked for you doesn't mean it will work for anyone else.  In the past, I ahve had VS give me that vague answer over and over and over,  so for shits and giggles I logged in a second account, standing next to the first one, and did the exact same search and got a hit immediately.

    But when I did that search again on the original account immediately after..ir was vague again.

    The last vendor search I did, after about 10 vague answers, I logged in three acounts and had them all searching concurrently.  Got an answer after two tries.  No idea wtf is going on here, but it needs fixed
  • JollyJadeJollyJade Posts: 578
    edited October 2019
    Mariah said:
    Sorry. Can I, personally,  fix it?  No.
    Can I offer a suggestion to help people find what they want in the meantime?
    Yes.  Sorry. I shouldn't have done that.

    Oh - transcendence sword worked, as did 'transcendence mystic and transcendence eval.


    No, I appreciate you trying to give advice, however saying "While the search is somewhat quirky just now, it can be convinced to give you the right results." is plain wrong and giving a wrong impression to developers maybe reading your feedback. They might even consider your opinion more valuable as you are a moderator and then decide there is no action needed, which would ultimatively screw other players with less of a voice. I'm glad it works for you but I can promise it does not for all of us.
    Just a troll who got told by lesser trolls (moderator classification)
  • MissEMissE Posts: 782
    I have tried the same search as well on items, one day it will work, the next it won't, exact same item and spelling.   And this is while I am standing at the vendor looking at the items so I know it is there.

    Yes we can work around it, the point is if you are after an item you should be able to type the name of that item into vs and get a result if the item is there. 

    As for alacrity scrolls, as someone asked above, I generally type in alacrity magery or alacrity lumberjacking and get a hit, however, having said that this is also iffy as if you type in say alacrity necromancy you may not get a hit not because the item isn't there but because VS is borked.

    Dr. Spector's lenses is a good one to search for lol.  Took me forever and about 10 different variations to find those.

    Cheers MissE

    For more info about Angelwood Warehouse Events go to the A.W.E Forum
  • King_GregKing_Greg Posts: 250
    Can we get a new hamster for the Vendor search/transfer server. Yesplskthx 
  • psychopsycho Posts: 356
    edited October 2019
    Mariah said:
    Sorry. Can I, personally,  fix it?  No.
    Can I offer a suggestion to help people find what they want in the meantime?
    Yes.  Sorry. I shouldn't have done that.
    Any tips, or workable work-around are appreciated!
    Searching for direct mods seem to work for me, however the free-text field seem to be the problem, even when searching for specific things.

    What this thread really needs is a notification from Devs that they acknowledge that there is a problem and they are working/or will work to fix it.  But its all silent, thread was created oct 1st, now its october 18th. The other thread with same topic that were closed, same story. This is why multiple threads with same topics are created. It could also lead to multiple emails to devs which could have been handled in this thread instead.

    Theres 5 ways to give feedback on vendor search problem:
    1: Write it on UO.com
    2: Write it in patch screen when launching UO
    3:Reply to this thread
    4: I guess as time goes its probably a new newsletter around the corner.
    5: Twitter/Facebook/Instagram

    Doing nothing or no feedback creates frustrated players,  any subject or bug.
  • KirthagKirthag Posts: 541
    edited October 2019
    Since 10am eastern time on 18oct2019 when I logged into the game on the Pacific shard, the vendor search is not working. I use the CC almost exclusively. I purposely delayed my gaming time today as I was aware of the maintenance. Aye, not really "related" to the mentioned data warehouses - but all data is relational, yes?

    Searching for very specific things (evocaricus, for example) is very slow, then returns with the "too vague" response. I'm not sure how more specific this term can be, this is a one-of-a-kind item drop that is uber-rare.



    I typically search for certain things every few days - the Evocaricus is just one of them. I also plug in "Yew" as a search term, as I collect Yew items (bunnies, snowglobes, banners, etc.) and am usually presented with a minimum of 8 crafted items as a result. I am still getting...


    The search is very slow as well - almost to the point of my closing the gump and just forgetting about it. I search for items just about every day as I stock and restock my vendors, so I know there is something wrong. 

    I expect this from atlantic, not pacific.

    kirthag.blogspot.com
  • dvviddvvid Posts: 849
    ATL vendor search is absolutely impossible to find anything at all it seems.  I've been trying sporadically for the last 10 hours...nothing has worked.
  • MerusMerus Posts: 656
    Just a simple search for power scrolls has failed for the last few hours for me over three different accounts.  No way to search for them except a text search.
  • KitiaraKitiara Posts: 63
    Atlantic has been "vague" on every single search I've done since 9:46am eastern time today (40 or so attempts for various items over the course of the day). And now that it has become such a vital part of my playstyle, it's severely hindering my ability to enjoy the game. I had one day off to play this week... today.... needed to price items to put on a vendor - couldn't compare prices. Went hunting instead. Ran out of charges on my BOS and was out of translocation powder - couldn't buy any. Spent an hour running around Luna clicking vendors like the olden days, trying to find some - finally did, and paid way too much. Needed a runic atlas to make some pumpkin and graveyard runebooks - ran around Luna again. Couldn't find one. A friend liked my dragon jack o lantern and wanted one. I tried to search for it (the way I searched for mine last week). Too vague (no, actually, search is not working properly - how about an accurate error message sometime?) Wasted time. So instead of unwinding from a stressful week at work, I'm adding frustration trying to play this game without vendor search.

    I know, first world problems... I was just really looking forward to playing today and it has not been fun. 

    Please fix vendor search! It's completely unusable on Atlantic. 
  • King_GregKing_Greg Posts: 250
    It's also dragging down the transfer system with it. 
  • MissEMissE Posts: 782

    Yeah I just spent about an HOUR trying to search for a 120 Archery scroll on Atlantic.  Not knowing the price didn't matter what I put in with the words 'legendary archery' or 'archery 120' or the exact words 'legendary scroll of archery' or '120 skill' bugger all.  I must of tried everything possible to narrow it down.

    In the end I had to put in just 'legendary' and then you get every single legendary weapon, legendary refinement, legendary anything , not knowing the price I figured it would be somewhere between 1-20mil (although for all i know they may now be down under a mil) so put in the price variation, even then I got about 50 pages to wade through, still didnt find anything so gave up and just whacked it up at the price I had recorded about 8 mths or so ago on my pricelist, so no idea how current that is.

    This needs to be fixed.

    EVERYBODY is complaining.

    Cheers MissE

    For more info about Angelwood Warehouse Events go to the A.W.E Forum
  • TrismegistosTrismegistos Posts: 197
    Right, vs did not work as expected. Is there a database in use with word index ability or just a grep utility?
    I assume give the timer 2 seconds more before the search will stopped may help this vague result...
    My tip, if item has a selectable property e. G. Gargoyle only, enter it.
    Plain text search is broken!
  • JollyJadeJollyJade Posts: 578
    edited October 2019
    For me it's fine. Think I will find a way to play without VS in the future. I got told saying VS is broken for ages is offending people.
    Just a troll who got told by lesser trolls (moderator classification)
  • Uriah_HeepUriah_Heep Posts: 915
    *offers all the offended a space place to recover*

    Did my good deed for the week.

    But it's still broke af, regardless
  • TimStTimSt Posts: 1,875
    JollyJade said:
    For me it's fine. Think I will find a way to play without VS in the future. I got told saying VS is broken for ages is offending people.

    It was how you were saying it that was the problem.  It is OK to say something is broken as long as you do it respectfully.
  • Uriah_HeepUriah_Heep Posts: 915
    TimSt said:
    JollyJade said:
    For me it's fine. Think I will find a way to play without VS in the future. I got told saying VS is broken for ages is offending people.

    It was how you were saying it that was the problem.  It is OK to say something is broken as long as you do it respectfully.

    To The Honorable Whomever It May Concern;

    Vendor search is broke af.  It is an awesome enhancement to the game in those brief flashes of brilliance when it does work.  However, they are few and far between.

    If you can please work this into your timetable to take a peek at, it would be forever appreciated and we will all be willing to dance at your next wedding.

    Thanking you in Advance, we are

    The People Who Pay Your Salary.


    ps:  Any true kind of downward communication on the real status of this might stop us from getting pitchforks, tar, and feathers.  (we need those for arrows instead)

  • JollyJadeJollyJade Posts: 578
    edited October 2019
    Hahaha, well said. Anyone still remember the launch of VS? Was broken day one. Some bandaids were put on. But it was still slow and gave "too vague" all the time. I'm kinda happy it is now a problem on a larger scale, since they would have never fixed it only for Atl. Maybe now they need to act... or maybe not... since we not gonna quit anyway and just pay for whatever they throw at us :D 
    Just a troll who got told by lesser trolls (moderator classification)
  • JollyJadeJollyJade Posts: 578
    Uriah_Heep said:
    ps:  Any true kind of downward communication on the real status of this might stop us from getting pitchforks, tar, and feathers.  (we need those for arrows instead)

    Feels like the answer would be "we can't fix it the whole thing is just a mess" and obviously nobody wants to spell this out.
    Just a troll who got told by lesser trolls (moderator classification)
  • BleakBleak Posts: 143Dev
    We will be doing some maintenance on the Vendor Search backend with the release of Publish 107 which should help resolve some of these issues. 
  • PawainPawain Posts: 10,286
    Not all?
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • SlissSliss Posts: 283
    Pawain said:
    Not all?
    You'll be able to find some items but not the others. And not all the time. What else do you want?
  • CazadorCazador Posts: 83
    There’s a few workarounds.
    search all together 
    Item Name
    blessed or cursed if applicable
    price range
    item slot.
    all items with mods are easily searched

    super annoying. Probably has to do with the commission vendors
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