No problems for me either. If you're still having problems, try using Google with "site:tvtropes.org
".
Can you search for anything on Google itself? If you're getting a CAPTCHA on Google, it will likely mess up your searches on this site as well. (The TVTropes search engine basically uses Google—it says "Enhanced by Google" at the bottom of your results, with a link to a page talking about Google's Programmable Search Engine
: "Add a customizable search box to your web pages and show fast, relevant results powered by Google Search".)
I'm having the same problem (old search spins its wheels, new search works OK), but only with Firefox, if I try it with Chrome, it works OK. And yes, using Google directly works.
Edited by Geoduck on Jan 19th 2023 at 1:23:07 AM
The Mansion of ESo I've read through the responses (thanks, by the way) and the problem seems to be that I'm using Firefox. And Old Search seemingly doesn't work on Firefox anymore. I don't plan on switching to Chrome (I really dislike Google in all it's forms) so I guess I'll just be using New Search from now on, that still works fine for me.
Again, thanks for all the help.
One last thing: Is there really nothing that can be done about Old Search and Firefox? New Search a lot of times doesn't show me work pages that I know exist or shows me pages that are completely unrelated to what I was searching for, so it's still not ideal for me.
Old search isn't working for me either (on Firefox, by the way). And new search has... quite a few problems that make it a pain to use. Such as completely ignoring quotation marks, meaning you can't even narrow down the search more to get around the other problems.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.This is very strange. I just tested this on Chrome and Firefox (I use the former but have both on my laptop), and it worked on both.
On Chrome:
On Firefox:
Oh thank God, I'm not the only one. Several times now when I try searching for anything, it won't give me the exact page even if its a two word title.
This seems to only happen on my laptop Chrome but no issues on mobile
Okay, now NEW search is doing the endless loading thing too. Still on Firefox.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.seconding that new search is hot garbage, and old search loads indefinitely. with new search, it's about 50/50 for whether a work will show up at all, even when you specify that you're looking for a work, and even if it has a pretty unique name.
for example, if you look up Skinamarink, a movie with a unique name, that clearly has a work page, on the new search, it doesn't return any results at all. when you narrow it down to only search for works, it pulls up a bunch of unrelated works, but the actual page for Skinamarink doesn't show up at all. at least, not on the first 5 pages, after which i stopped looking. i didn't even know the movie **had** a page, until i actually typed the url into my browser.

This problem started two days ago. If there's already a thread for it, I apologize, I currently have no way of finding it. So as I said, the search function hasn't been working right for me for two days. Every time I type something into the bar and hit enter, the page won't load properly. It'll just search and search, without displaying any results. I've tried to use it from my phone a few times, just to be sure it wasn't anything to do with my laptop, but got the same outcome.
When I follow direct link, everything goes swimmingly, but having to search for a direct link to a page isn't always practical, especially when I'm searching for a trope I don't know the exact name of.
Is anybody else having this problem, and if yes, is it being worked on already?
Edited by Justmenoworries on Jan 18th 2023 at 2:14:50 AM