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Long lasting problem with the Search Engine

Hello everyone. I've been using Roll20 for quite a long time now, and mostly I've been a DM for my own campaigns. I can't say for sure when this issue started to turn up, but I remember that in my first few campaigns the search feature worked flawlessly. So I could basically either use the token search to get some generic results from dundjinni or cartographersguild, or I could use the "Everything" search to look for something more specific. Like say for example I wanna get a png picture of a first aid kit from the bioshock games, I could easily search for "Bioshock First Aid png" and it would give me pretty much the same results as a google image search. This was really neat and saved me a lot of time, since I didn't have to google>save picture>upload it back into Roll20. And it also wouldn't clutter my Art Library too much which I had saved up for mostly original or hard to google assets. But at some point this just stopped working. The "Everything" search always just said "No results found for those keywords". After some googling I found some threads in the Roll20 Forums about how I should try the "Solving Technical Issues"-Steps, or about how this was a server-side problem on Roll20 and the devs would fix it soon. Well I did the "Solving Technical Issues"-Steps 1-3 multiple times on Chrome (my Main Browser) and Firefox with no results. I even got the chance to test it on different Computers, since I had bought a new one recently. So I just assumed that this was indeed a server-side problem that the devs would fix eventually, that's why I waited and didn't do anything else about it. (Other than that my Virtual Tabletop always worked well, except for a few minor and non-re-occuring bugs) Now after what must have been months, or almost a year actually, the issue still persists and I'm starting to give up hope that this is just a temporary server-side problem. So to sum up the problem and some details I have discovered about it over time: Using the "Everything" search only works when I use single keywords, or very generic multiple keywords (like for example "christmas tree", or "birthday cake"), but it does not work at all for more specific search keywords (for example "Dark Souls Hollow") The biggest Problem about using very generic search keywords is that it gives me very big JPEGs most of the time, which look very ugly as a token. And I like keeping a clean look in my games. I am using the newest Version of Chrome, but also tested out my Problem with the newest Versions of Firefox. My Operating System is Windows 7 (64-bit), but I also encountered this issue while I briefly had Windows 10 installed. I would appreciate it a lot if someone could help me with this issue, since I've been running a lot of campaigns again recently and this would save me quite a bit of time and Art Library space like it used to do a long time ago. I can't be the only one who just includes "png" into his search keywords to look for images which are kinda suited for a token, right? Or is there simply another way to use the search system to search for PNGs which I simply didn't know about?
1464033517
Phil B.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
Hey Artur, sorry you're having issues with the search and sorry I can't be more helpful right now. Google changed the wait their search APIs work, which really messed up our "not-roll20 specifically" internet searches. We are currently looking for a better way to do these searches, but so far haven't found anything that would be any better than what we have now. You can always search through google and upload the images yourself if you're not finding anything through the in-app search. Sorry it's not great now, it's just as annoying for all of us too and we would love to be able to fix it, but there's not an easy answer for that issue at this time.
Oh I see, thank you for your response Phil. Actually hearing from a Roll20 Dev that this is an actual problem for everyone is at the very least a relief. :D Because it was just bugging me and I thought that I was the only one with the issue. But yeah you are right, it's not a major issue and I'll just keep uploading things into my art library. And since I'm already talking to a Dev I just wanna let you and all the other people on the Roll20 team know that you did a great job with this website and you'll always have my support :)
1464109435
Phil B.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
Yeah, it's definitely not just you, we all suffer from the lack of results from the image search. I'm glad it's not too much of an issue. Thank you for the kind words, we always appreciate it when our users appreciate the hard work we do. We especially appreciate the fact that you support us, it's users like you that allow us to work full time on this awesome site! :D Since there isn't anything else I can do here, other than "fixing someone else's search API", I'm going to go ahead and close this thread. If you have any further issues please feel free to start a new one.