Magento - Autocomplete Suggest Search Not Working

I have incorporated a new theme in Magento v1.4.2.0, and have completed all the necessary changes, but only following true Magento way of overriding the Magento modules & methods.

My only problem is that the auto complete suggest search functionality in the front-end is not working at all. The AJAX is running as I can view the calls in "Firebug" (with the status showing as "200 OK"), but the search result dropdown isn’t coming.

Firebug

Some more info:

get

form.mini.phtml

q

exception.log

system.log

1

form.mini.phtml

Firebug

blank

NULL

Edit:-

I am also getting another problem. Say I have 4 products, each starting with a name "Test". Also let's assume that the name of these 4 Products are "Test 1", "Test 2", "Test 3", "Test 4".

Now if I do a simple search with query "Test", in the router "catalogsearch/index", then result is showing that there are 4 Products available, which is correct. But if I do a search with query as "Test 1", then no results are showing, which is very much weird.

catalogsearch/index

Also I am using "jQuery", with no conflict condition. However, there are also 6 plugins of "jQuery", all of which are not following the no conflict condition perfectly. This is because the code in some of those plugins are huge, & it is impossible for me to change each & every "$" sign to "jQuery", making it no conflict compatible. Can anybody suggest for this sort of problem too? And whether it is affecting the Auto Suggest Search in any way?

jQuery

jQuery

$

jQuery

function ($) ..Plugin code goes here.. (jQuery);

4 Answers
4

It sounds as though there is an issue with the way that the server is responding to the AJAX calls rather than a problem with the form or the javascript. I would suggest that you need to debug a couple of key areas.

Ideally, you would debug this with Xdebug on your Apache hooked into your IDE (Netbeans, Eclipse, other). My personal preference/setup is Netbeans, but others will work fine. If you can't use live debugging, you can insert print_r/echo statements through the code blocks and trace the call that way.

The javascript on form.mini.phtml should be sending the request to Mage_CatalogSearch_AjaxController and the suggestAction. Set breakpoints/trace messages either side of the first if statement in this method.

Mage_CatalogSearch_AjaxController

suggestAction

if

If the breakpoint/trace doesn't get hit, try manually hitting the action by putting http://hostname/catalogsearch/ajax/suggest?q=query in your browser address bar.

http://hostname/catalogsearch/ajax/suggest?q=query

If that doesn't work, there's something broken with the config of the catalogsearch module, probably to do with the <frontname><routers> section. Use Alan Storm's Configviewer or CommerceBug modules to debug that.

<frontname><routers>

The AjaxController creates an instance of Mage_CatalogSearch_Block_Autocomplete which does the actual query. Set a breakpoint/trace just before $suggestData = $this->getSuggestData(); to check that the Block is getting instantiated.

AjaxController

Mage_CatalogSearch_Block_Autocomplete

$suggestData = $this->getSuggestData();

After that line, the block calls it's own getSuggestData() method. Continue to trace through the code to see where the error occurs.

getSuggestData()

The Block calls this method to retrieve the values that match the q param, in particular the setQueryFilter() method which inserts the param into the SQL query criteria. Again, trace through here to find the error.

q

setQueryFilter()

I can't emphasize enough how much easier you will find this (and most Magento issues) when you're using live debugging in your IDE. Have a read of my answer here if you want tips on this process.

Make sure that you have the server in Developer Mode to output as many errors as possible.

Mage_CatalogSearch_Model_Query::getSuggestCollection()

If you view the source of a working site (view-source:http://demo.magentocommerce.com/) you should find the search form looks like this:

<div class="form-search">
<label for="search">Search:</label>
<input id="search" type="text" name="q" value="" class="input-text" />
<button type="submit" title="Search" class="button"><span><span>Search</span></span></button>
<div id="search_autocomplete" class="search-autocomplete"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
var searchForm = new Varien.searchForm('search_mini_form', 'search', 'Search entire store here...');
searchForm.initAutocomplete('http://demo.magentocommerce.com/catalogsearch/ajax/suggest/', 'search_autocomplete');
//]]>
</script>
</div>


The important part seems to be an element called search_autocomplete and it's ID is passed to searchForm.initAutocomplete(). Also make sure your new theme includes prototype.js and the files from js/varien/ and doesn't have any other Javascript errors.

search_autocomplete

searchForm.initAutocomplete()

prototype.js

js/varien/

Firebug

NULL

blank

Please check one time, that you search after a word, you know, that the product is existing. If it cannot be shown then, press enter and you will be send to result view. After that test, if you can find the article now in suggest search.

I have the same problem ... it looks like there is a bug in the search or a conflict with some extension mabye the German Markets one ....

Check what you get if you enter this: http://www.studio-ausruestung.de/catalogsearch/ajax/suggest/?q=% with your sitename of course.

Normaly you have to get all results ...

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