Why does Emby limit search results to 16?

[CharleyVarrick 283]

I just tested the new Search feature and there seems to be a bug

In my movies, I search for "Sing" and it gives only 16 results, all of them with "sing" being within the title

(alien upriSING, beauty is embarrasSING, better off SINGle. etc)

 

I have 10 movies with a title that starts with Sing but none came up searching for "sing"

(Sing, Sing Street, Sing Your Song, etc)

Edited May 24, 2017 by jlr19

[Luke 42078]

Thanks for the report. We'll take a look.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

If it might help, I re-did the "sing" search and noticed the results seem to be limited to the first alphabetical 16 (hence it did not give anything starting with "Sing")

But it did not found as well "un SINGe en hiver", "i could go on SINGing", lady "SINGs the blues", "the jazz SINGer", "sex and the SINGle girl", and so on.

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by jlr19

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Out of curiosity, I also did a Windows search on my 3 main movies drives for "sing", and found only 18 hits, which left me puzzled as I already know Emby search missed a lot more than just 2. So I redid the Windows search, same 3 drives, but this time for *sing* (wildcard before and after), and it found 65 hits for "sing".

 

Just out of curiosity, I did an Emby search for "lov" and again, results were limited to the first 16. As you might imagine, windows search for movies title with *lov* in them turned out a LOT more, 140...

 

So the problem is Emby search result are stopping after the first 16 hits.

Edited May 16, 2017 by jlr19

[Luke 42078]

Correct yes there is always a limit.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

If I'm not mistaken, there wasn't a limit before, or it was much higher. Wasn't there a "MORE" button to get other results past the first 16?

 

When what you're searching for doesn't come up in results because of an arbitrary alphabetical limit, it is misleading the users.

What's the reasoning for this?

 

I use Kodi as front end and when I search something, it gives all results, all neatly organized within categories (movies, tv show, actors, etc).

Edited May 16, 2017 by jlr19

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Again, I ask this question: Why does Emby limit search results to the first 16 hits?

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Bump

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Isn't it possible to get an answer to a simple-enough question?

[Luke 42078]

When displaying multiple categories vertically, each category is always going to have a limit of items we will display. Depending on where you search from sometimes there might only be a single category and in that situation we can probably increase it.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Respectfully, the search result limit should be removed, plain and simple. I haven't seen any valid (or invalid) argument to justify its existence.

Edited May 28, 2017 by jlr19

[Luke 42078]

There always has to be a limit or you could end up sending back more than the UI can handle. Plain and simple. As I mentioned though, when there is only a single category being displayed, then that is a scenario where we can raise the limit.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

When we browse media, it says on top 1-100 of 9999* (*as an example).

If we search something so common that there's more than 100 hits (which would be quite rare, but not impossible), couldn't the search results be presented in 100 items per page, similarly to what browsing media already does?

 

The computer itself can do it thru its own OS search feature, Kodi does it as well (and very elegantly at that), I would therefore expect Emby, being right between the OS and the Kodi front end would be just as capable as the other guys, it being my media manager.

 

I am not trying to second guess you, or be a smart a*s, I just want to understand...

Would it have to do with the fact that Emby searches as we type. If so, its not a particularly useful behaviour, as it tries like crazy to update its irrelevant preliminary results when we type a 2nd character, then a 3rd, and so on. Whenever I can, I copy-paste my search string instead of typing them just to avoid seeing this clumsiness.

 

As you may already know, Kodi Global Search waits until we hit the DONE button before beginning its search, and gave me this result (search: lov) in a little over 5 seconds.

In any case, I've made my point known, with a couple of improvment suggestion, the rest is up to you.

Cheers

 

[daedalus 434]

There always has to be a limit or you could end up sending back more than the UI can handle. Plain and simple. As I mentioned though, when there is only a single category being displayed, then that is a scenario where we can raise the limit.

 

maybe you should think about a "more" button if there is more

cause if you don't nobody knows that there is more which can be confusing

[slhopkins33 0]

The search results limit is  real pain point for me.  I also would love to be able to search within a library.

[ebr 16184]

9 hours ago, slhopkins33 said:

I also would love to be able to search within a library

You should be able to do this now...