[logi_cal869]

Hoping for an answer. No combination of search settings resolved the issue.

Yes, I'm logged in - /s - and I even tried a different browser as a public user. Same results.

[logi_cal869]

Pinging Admin: Please see OP.

[RummyChick]

because it was three letters

experiment with current titles and you will see what I mean

[DoodleBob]

This has also been happening to me lately.

What I do, is close the window or browser tab, relaunch FR, THEN search. That usually fixes the problem.

Yes, I know this isn't a root cause assessment. But it gets you from A to B.

[T.B. Yoits]

When the search by title fails, you'll see the following last line on the failed return page:

Only article titles can be searched and words with three or fewer letters are not searched at all.

[Cowgirl of Justice]

I have looked for specific keywords that would lead to a past posting and got the same message.

[grcuster]

Was the asterisk ‘*’ part of your query? If so, try removing. I received several articles with “flu” in the title.

[silent_jonny]

Mod: “Search still works ... sometimes.”

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Title searches must be no less than 4 letters. Keyword searches can be less.

[zeestephen]

Search needs a minimum number of word letters to work.

I think I recall it being a seven letter minimum.

I always use two or three words at once, so that has not been an issue for me for a long time.

[roving]

I just use a regular search engine and put free republic after it. Works a lot better than search on this site

[Pollard]

All search engines don’t do three letter words because it would overload the system.

[Wayne07]

You can use Google to search titles on FreeRepublic, including three letter words, which are often relevant (FBI, FLU, ATF, etc...).

just use the site: qualifier to limit results to freerepublic.com

and the intitle: qualifier to limit the search to titles.

so the flu search is:

site:freerepublic.com intitle:flu

[moovova]

Search only works for the Title Nazis.