Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 1024 bytes) in /var/www/html/vb/includes/functions_search.php on line 197

I'm only trying to post a short text - like this!

It happens to me from time to time also, but I've no idea why. It's not a very common problem, and usually seems to dissapear of its own accord quite quickly.

Just to fully answer your problem, it's a server error rather than a problem with anything you are doing or a problem with your computer.

The PHP script running on the server gobbled up so much memory, it exceeded the hard limit. Either a bug in the script, server misconfiguration or simple misjudgement.

Just wanted to bump this thread and let everyone know that I have implemented fixes that I hope fixes the issue, however if you should see it again please post saying so in this thread, exact (GMT) time you got the error would help too...

And just to be clear the error will be:
(Along with which file caused the issue, which line in it and how much memory was asked for)

got this error when doing a thread search:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 6 bytes) in /var/www/html/vb/search.php on line 997

I had that error recently.Too many results for your search term,overloading something maybe ?

It`s a problem with the site and is currently under investigation by Per Hansson.

I have reported your problem to per, please just bear with us and I`m sure it`ll get fixed.

[color=blue]Edit: you should post this problem in this thread HERE.[/color]

Regards Howard

I have temporarily stickied this thread, until the matter has been resolved.

Regards Howard

As a side note, I've been doing a number of things lately (you will see soon) and right after that I have plans for upgrading the forums to version 3.5 and hopefully implement a different more effective search engine which may resolve the problem.

oooooo, not to steal the thread, but what new features come with version 3.5?

Read this:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156067
and this:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=176170

Threads merged.

Thank you very much for your feedback guys...

I have made changes already that I had hoped would fix this (limiting how many threads are searched by the "similar threads" feature, unfortunately this appears to be a core issue in vBulletin and nothing else, there is a post on the vBulletin forums that dates back to 2003 with this issue, it still has new posts up to this year but no solution is provided, except to switch to vBulletin v3.5, which will bring a completely new search engine (server side)

I have just received this error when trying to do a search.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 35 bytes) in /var/www/html/vb/search.php on line 997

I have tried doing a search several times within the last hour 01:54 GMT and keep getting the above error.

Regards Howard

Anyone else seeing this?

I can do searches just fine... Dang vB...

Really hoping v3.5 of vB will fix this issue...

Hi Per.

Just tried to do another search and got exactly the same error.

It`s strange that I got to nearly 9500 posts before I ever saw the error message!

Regards Howard

Even stranger.

I have just found out I only get the error message on certain search words.

For example. I can type norton and get lots of results, but if I type windows, I get the error message everytime. In fact if I type anything with windows as the first word, I get the error.

Regards Howard

Would it be possible to disable the call on the search function when posting, or perhaps simply limit it to searching the last 20 threads? Just an idea, even if it may be an old, impractical, or redundant one.

Spike; this has already been done, for certain reasons it is not viable to limit it that much but I have limited the search function to search less posts...

However this was a while ago...

And Howard; if I use the searchstring windows I also get the error now...

Thanks Per. I had a feeling it may have been tried already. In fact, thinking about it, I did read something about limiting it a while ago. My bad.

I just tried posting with "windows" as the first word of the post without a problem. In searching though, just simply searching for the string "windows" is also yielding the error message at the moment here too (maybe a vB programmers joke? lol).

As you say Per, It would be great if 3.5 fixes this bug, but I can't say I envy you guys that have to re-integrate all of your hacks and mods. . I'd offer to help if I was any good at PHP but sadly, I'm not.