The following is a list of common problems and possible solutions.

1. I'm getting duplicates in my search results.

Try deleting the folder inc/app/sitesearch/data/sitesearch.index and re-index the site. This is usually the result of old test data lingering that doesn't have an expiry date in it. Make sure you stop the server before deleting the index.

2. I get HTML output when I run the indexer.

You likely don't have the PHP command line interface (CLI) installed. You can check by doing a php -v on the command line and it will likely say CGI instead of CLI. You will need to recompile PHP with the configure option --enable-cli specified.

3. The SiteSearch server won't start.

Make sure the java file is in your path. To adjust your path, use the following commands:

$ #check your path:
$ echo $PATH
$ #add the java folder to your path
$ PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/java/bin
$ export PATH

4. The SiteSearch indexer has an gethostbyaddr() error

If running the SiteSearch indexer produces something like the following output, it means that PHP isn't installed in CLI-mode, but in CGI-mode. Unfortunately, while the two work similarly, the one can't be supported due to both feature limitations and security concerns as well (CGI-mode can't differentiate with 100% certainty between a web-based request and a command-line one -- or at least, we've found limitations in the past with this differentiation, but either way it also has functional problems such as the error shown below).

PHP Warning:  gethostbyaddr(): Address is not a valid IPv4 or IPv6 address in
/home/site2317/httpdocs/inc/app/sitetracker/lib/phpOpenTracker/phpOpenTracker/Container.php
on line 95

To test whether CLI-mode is enabled, run the command:

php -v

The output should be something like the following:

PHP 4.4.1 (cli) (built: Mar  5 2006 10:30:50)
Copyright (c) 1997-2004 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Zend Technologies

If you have CGI-mode PHP, then the (cli) in the first line will say (cgi) instead.

Ordinarily, simply compiling PHP with the --with-apxs option is sufficient to enable CLI-mode, but this doesn't seem to be the case on all systems (despite what the PHP documentation may say). There are however two ways to force CLI-mode. The first is to add the --disable-cgi option as well, and the second is to issue the command make install-cli immediately after the make install command while compiling PHP.