Forma Search-in-book results sometimes ends on page17, even if there's more (hidden)results

[droopy]

I noticed that some “search inside a book” ends its results on page 17, even though there are more than just 17 pages of results. Why is that?
Here’s what I mean?

I search for the word “the” and the results don’t even get past the first chapter of the book.
Or when I search for the $ (dollar symbol), I also have just 17 pages of results, even though there’s more than that. (For example, I’m reading the 20th chapter of a book, and I see multiple dollar signs, yet the last page of results only go to chapter 18 or 19.

But, in the same book, when I search for a character’s last name, I get 23 pages of results.

I tried searching for a common word in other books too (specifically the word the, again), and in both other books, search results abruptly end on page 17.

What gives? I don’t get it.

[Deskisamess]

Maybe because the search terms, "the" and "$" are too common in that particular book?

If you search for the word "the" on a Kindle, you get no results.

[droopy]

hmmm... not sure that's a good explanation. Why does it stop on 17 pages, yet a surname goes all the way to 23 pages.

[Ripplinger]

What firmware are you on? Older firmware had a somewhat crippled version of search where it would only search up to 100 instances of the word. Nor would it allow you to continue to search after a certain page, the only choice is from the beginning.

If you're still on an older firmware, that would explain why some end on Page 17 and some on Page 23 if you're searching for something used often in the book.

It was finally fixed (and not all that long ago) but I'm not sure which firmware version it was.

[droopy]

In Kobo's Settings>Device_Information>Software_Details: 4.21.15015 (dbef21c40c, 5/13/20).

This is the latest version, isn't it?

[Ripplinger]

I'm on 4.20.14622, there wasn't anything I'd benefit from in the newest (probably last 2) updates, so it should be working correctly. Unless the newer version brought the crippled search back again, but someone else could verify that.

I've seen wonky search results in really badly formatted books. But usually it lists the results, and when you try and click on one, it just takes you back to the page you were at. I've never figured out exactly what was wrong with those books though.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by droopy

hmmm... not sure that's a good explanation. Why does it stop on 17 pages, yet a surname goes all the way to 23 pages.

Instead of how many pages are represented, wouldn't it make more sense to see how many time the particular word was found? That also explains what you're seeing...if the limit is/was 100, it would be easy to hit that limit with a common word like "the".

On my Oasis, I just did a search for a character's name in one book, and it's there 500 times.

A search of the word "wrong" comes up with 45 times.

A search for "she" or "the" returns zero. Because they are too common, and as far as finding a location in the book, not helpful.

[MGlitch]

It's the same reason that "shuffle" on most modern music apps doesn't actually shuffle the songs. You will never hear the same song back to back without setting conditions such that this is the only outcome available.

Because really the vast vast majority want shuffle to mean that they do not hear a song twice over.

Similarly people don't search for words like "the" "a" "he" etc. because they have no real use for that kind of search result. Sure Kobo or Amazon could make it so the search returned every result of those words, but why would they? It's a waste of resources.

[davidfor]

It is the length of the search term. If you search for something that is three characters or less, only the first 100 results will be returned. If the search term is longer, it should show all the results.

This is a deliberate decision by Kobo. Originally it only showed the first 100 results. When they changed this a couple of years ago, they kept the limit for short search terms.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

It is the length of the search term. If you search for something that is three characters or less, only the first 100 results will be returned. If the search term is longer, it should show all the results.

This is a deliberate decision by Kobo. Originally it only showed the first 100 results. When they changed this a couple of years ago, they kept the limit for short search terms.

DavidFor,
Thanks for your helpful reply. That seems to explain these results:

their: 126 pages
they: 205
it: 17
its: 17
were: 293
are: 17
are_ (the underscore means "space"): 66
_are_: 27
_is_: 74
is: 17
_$:17
$1: 17
$2: 12


I wish we had the option of removing this 100-result limit for a search term that's one or two or three characters.