Incomplete Search index and not able to search for more than one word

[forumvbservice]

Since the Update of vBulletin version 4.2.3 to 5.2.5 we have problem with search function. Running MySQL 5.5.52. All tables except language, language_alt and phrase have InnoDB as Engine. The three other tables have MyISAM. Whole running on a physical Machine with Debian 7 (Wheezy) Linux OS.
We already rebuilt the complete search index via command line tool. Problem is that search does not find all topics/items. There are lot of topics/items with exact word but they are not in search result.
Beside this we cannot search for multiple words. There the result is always zero.

In vBulletin there are two search type options DB Search and Sphinx Search. Is there any Fulltext Search available?
I have tried both search types but both does not work correctly.

Does someone has an idea?

[Trevor Hannant]

Unless you've got Sphinx installed, it won't work!

Did you clear the search index before rebuilding it?

[forumvbservice]

Sure i have installed latest version of Sphinx. Sphinx itself was working.
Yes cleared the index through the vBulletin searchtool script. Is there another way to completely clear the search index?

[forumvbservice]

Another question about the search index. Is it possible to see what is inside the search index tables? These seems to be encrypted.

[Wayne Luke]

The search index tables (i.e. searchtowords_a through searchtowords_z) are just INT fields and are not encrypted. The words table should also be viewable. To see if Sphinx Tables can be viewed, you would have to visit the Sphinx site. We merely provide an interface. We do not have any control over how Sphinx works on the server or stores data.

Depending on how you configured Sphinx, it could be storing its data in a MySQL Database. Then you should be able to run MySQL queries and cast the values to text using the cast() or convert() functions that MySQL provides. If you're storing the data in another storage system, you would have to consult that storage system's documentation.

Whenever switching search types, it is recommended that you complete a full reindexing.