Frustrating search syntax error message

Francis · 2025-05-29T11:51:40+00:00

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Two problems here: (1) the text of the error message does not appear in its entirety (I tried different zoom levels and full screen to no avail) and (2) the message does not help much to know how to fix the search. What would be better, would be something similar to the "use smart search instead?" clickable message when running a precise search. I realize that the latter is a generic message whereas suggestions for search syntax would be a more complex proposition. Still, fact is that the current "solution" is not that helpful.

This post is not asking how to fix the search below (I already know that). It is making an observation that one has to figure out how to solve the problem with not much to go on in the error message. Sure, there is a red line, which I interpret as indicating where the fix needs to be (though I am not 100% confident of this). The message "missing value for operator" is somewhat cryptic. It turned out that putting the word "repetition" ahead rather than after the parenthesis made the search work, but that it should be so is far from intuitive to start with and certainly not obvious from the error message.

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Bradley Grainger (Logos)

It turned out that putting the word "repetition" ahead rather than after the parenthesis made the search work

That's not a valid query either. You're missing an operator (probably "AND") between the two parts of the query:

(use OR using OR uses) AND repetition

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

(1) the text of the error message does not appear in its entirety (I tried different zoom levels and full screen to no avail) and (2) the message does not help much to know how to fix the search.

That is how it's designed to appear: it shows a short snippet of the query around the error location.
Agreed. It does seem like the red bar should appear between ")" and "repetition", showing that there's a missing operator in that location.

Francis

Thank you, @Bradley Grainger (Logos) for your reply and explanations.

The lack of clarity is not just the result of the mislocation of the red bar. One can search Jesus Christ (without quotation marks) and get results, so it far from obvious that one would have to use an operator between a closed parenthesis that has valid content) and a second term.

Secondly, perhaps the error message could be made clearer: Missing operator here : | use (or using
I realize that space is always at a premium especially on mobile and it may not be possible to add specification for greater clarity. As for how to indicate that the search string is intentionally truncated, I suppose that different people may find that it would be clearer or less so depending on how it's signified. That being said, I'd think that having "here" in the error description would help focus the reader more clearly on what is being called out and not have him wonder if something is not showing because the text is truncated.