Search Returns blank page

[JMK2]

Have a csv file holding 3,000 items that will successfully return a page of search results. If I click the link on any of the results on the search result page it uses the 000002.pl file and the hourglass runs for minutes. Eventually I am given a completely blank page.

All the items are in one category, is that too many items perhaps?

[cdicken]

This is almost definitely the case, but I can see that your issue is being dealt with HERE

[JMK2]

Thanks Chris,

Just out of curiosity, what is the maximum number of items for a category that is practical?

[cdicken]

Depends on how you are laying them out. If you are using very compact rows, then you can squeeze 50 on with no problems. If you are using the standard Actinic product layout templates, I would not recommend going above about 15-20.

[JMK2]

Your reply was timely as I was just testing my database of 3750 items when it came in. I have been progressively cutting the items into smaller sections trying to find something that will work. If I make each item as section text, it takes more than half a day to update the site. If I place them all into one the browser times out. Now I am down to 250 items per section. The browser no longer times out but it does take quite a long time.

It seems rather strange to me that Actinic cannot handle a couple of hundred items in a section. I recall that on another site we did years ago our home-grown Cold Fusion cart could handle 40 thousand records without batting an eyelash so I'm rather perplexed. Is Actinic in fact not used on sites that have large numbers of items that belong to the same category? If so, how did they handle it?

Thanks.

[cdicken]

You can have more that I said there, - the search certainly handlies it. It's just that if the search returns a product at the bottom of a section of 200 products, the page will have to fully load in the browser before the customer will be shown the returned item. This may take a while...

[JMK2]

Thanks Chris,

I see what you mean. So I think it will be best to make each item a category unto itself and let the update run overnight. So given I do that, I see that I have all the categories running down the left frame on one of the results pages. I assume it is a simple thing to repress the display of the categories in this case?

Thanks again.