Hello,

Sorry for the title, but it's what I think after trying to find posts and comments that I've made or any other users, it's just imposible. No matter if you use AND, OR, " ", it just doesn't work.
I have to use ChatGPT to find things, and that's insane.

I wanted to find posts where the duplicated results on searching topics is discussed and I tried so many combinations.. Result with IPS? ZERO.

Then I said, will ChatGPT find what I want? Ohhh yes, it did find it. I asked ChatGPT to search- See below.

My question is... what's the use of Invision's search if we can't find things? The search is competely obsolete, it just doesn't work.

Why does a user need to use AI to find what he wants instead of using Invision's search? It's just insane! Are you improving the search function? It definitely needs to be revamped because right now it's just impossible to find anything. I just can't find anything, and a "dummy user" should be able to find what he needs without using boolean variables or anything strange, just by asking the search.

Is there anything like that being done? Thanks

This is an area we have plans to improve.

Our current search implementation is based on database lookups which is fine, but given the advances in intelligence, it's fair to want something more.

As always, cost is a big driver of decisions. We could easily and quickly build a connector to a popular AI engine to vectorise and pull results but on large communities with hundreds of thousands of posts and content that would eat tokens and burn through money in no time.

I ran the numbers quickly and to store in a vector database and fetch the top 50 matches using an AI agent such as Claude, it'd cost around $200/month for a 500k post database. That'd get you a quick solution but a very expensive one.

We also have complications such as our rich permission functionality, our comprehensive search filters and the activity stream which uses the same underlying technology.

Essentially, we'd have to strip back some of the stream features and pull out the text and put that elsewhere.

The short version is - we're on it but it won't be something that's coming in a minor release and it'll likely be offered as a paid option for our Cloud customers.

In the short term, if you could share what you're trying to search for, then there may be ways to squeeze more out of our current system.

8 hours ago, Matt said:

This is an area we have plans to improve.

Our current search implementation is based on database lookups which is fine, but given the advances in intelligence, it's fair to want something more.

As always, cost is a big driver of decisions. We could easily and quickly build a connector to a popular AI engine to vectorise and pull results but on large communities with hundreds of thousands of posts and content that would eat tokens and burn through money in no time.

I ran the numbers quickly and to store in a vector database and fetch the top 50 matches using an AI agent such as Claude, it'd cost around $200/month for a 500k post database. That'd get you a quick solution but a very expensive one.

We also have complications such as our rich permission functionality, our comprehensive search filters and the activity stream which uses the same underlying technology.

Essentially, we'd have to strip back some of the stream features and pull out the text and put that elsewhere.

The short version is - we're on it but it won't be something that's coming in a minor release and it'll likely be offered as a paid option for our Cloud customers.

In the short term, if you could share what you're trying to search for, then there may be ways to squeeze more out of our current system.

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. I really appreciate it.

I’m not looking for AI search in my community because I already use tags, images, and custom apps I’ve built myself, so finding content there is very easy. The issue is actually here on the Invision Community website, where I often struggle to find what I’m looking for. I’ve tried many times, and nowadays I end up using ChatGPT to find things for me — but honestly, it shouldn’t have to work like that.

There’s something in the frontend that bothers me a lot and doesn’t really make sense to me.

I’ve started many topics since joining the community, yet there’s no reliable way for me to find them again.

When I go to my Streams and click on “Content I Started”

…the results are not actually showing the content I started. Instead, it displays all the comments and replies I’ve made across my own topics and other people’s topics.

But that’s not what the stream title says, and not what I’m trying to find.

If it says “Content I Started,” I expect to see only the topics I originally created. For example, I may want to quickly review:

• bugs I reported

• feature requests I opened

• support issues I’m struggling with

At the moment, that’s extremely difficult because I can’t get a clean list of the topics I personally started in sections like “Help & Support” or “Feature Requests.”

A reply inside a topic is not “content I started.” It’s content I continued.

I hope I explained myself correctly.

Thanks

Would keep in mind that the Activity Stream there is limited to 365 days by default to keep load time and resources reasonable. Therefore, if you have not started anything within that time, you will not see it. You may also see replies of yours from your own topics in that stream if you have opted to keep "Content items, comments, and reviews" under "Show me." You may wish to click "Content items" if you don't wish to see that.

Think what you have given us is still valuable feedback even though the software is working as it is intended.

We also have the less feature-rich profile activity, this can be seen by going to your profile -> See My Activity -> filter by Topics. There isn't a way to filter by forum but it is all encompassing.

Well, here is a topic I've started some weeks ago:
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/486871-users-cant-search-for-ai/

Here is, what "Content I started" looks like:

And "My Content":

Also, why does this search: https://invisioncommunity.com/search/?q=%22search%20title%20only%22&quick=1&start_after=any&updated_after=any give 0 results, when this discussion I was looking for exactly contains that search term? I literally copied it from there (after I found the topic through google).

In general I have to agree @michimachi. Finding content in IC is really a pain or even doesn't work at all.

It would be worth reading Matts reply above. We're aware :)

Well, I did. It reads to me, that you are aware that there is room for improvements and that ai based search might be a thing in the future.
And Jim states, that activity streams only take content from the last 365 days into account.

What else did I miss?

Because the screenshots and links above show, that even existing features like activity streams and search currently don't work at all! Activity streams are empty when they should not and search does not find when it should.

Edited May 6May 6 by Christian Meixner

3 minutes ago, Christian Meixner said:

Well, I did. It reads to me, that you are aware that there is room for improvements and that ai based search might be a thing in the future.
And Jim states, that activity streams only take content from the last 365 days into account.

What else did I miss?

But the screenshots and links above show, that even existing features like activity streams and search currently don't work at all! Activity streams are empty when they should not and search does not find when it should.

I agree. It's very difficult, almost impossible to find anything, unfortunately.

Any Feedback?
Is this the way it's supposed to work or is it a bug? Both, Activity Streams and Search?

I have brought up the existing items internally, relating to streams etc.

I manually moved some content around when we restructured the forums, which seems to have.. broken something.

I'm rebuilding the index now.

34 minutes ago, Matt said:

I manually moved some content around when we restructured the forums, which seems to have.. broken something.

I'm rebuilding the index now.

I can hear that meme

On 5/7/2026 at 12:53 PM, Matt said:

I'm rebuilding the index now.

That seems to have fixed ... something.

"Content I Startet" now lists a single thread of mine:

(Goes all the way down with this thread only).

Other current threads like this one are still not in that stream (and can also not be found through search):
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/486871-users-cant-search-for-ai/

And one other thing:
Where were threads like this moved to?
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/482137-the-rank-progress-bar-is-calculated-incorrectly/
I can find this one only with google. Also the paths in the breadcrumb nav to get there don't exist:

Self hosted items will have remained within self hosted areas. I think this is where the confusion is here. We split the 2 sets of sections for differing needs

Ok, well. But that topic from me (Bug in rank progression) never was es self hosted issue. And as far as I remember, I never had posted a topic in self hosted area. So why were they moved there?

Also, the other Topic about searching the word ai is rather new and it's located in current forum Ideas and Requests, but still is not listed in my activity feeds and can't be found with search.

And how do I get to that old forum, e.g. "Invision Community Classic"? If I click the link in the bread crumb navigation (screen above) I get this:

Also I don't see any menu entry leading to this forum.

Edited May 11May 11 by Christian Meixner

It needs to be clarifed, that almost every topic on the community was moved, as the community was redesigned. If you have a link to it I can move it for you. It also may be for the others that some items are still rebuilding

19 hours ago, Marc said:

It needs to be clarifed, that almost every topic on the community was moved, as the community was redesigned.

Well, I'd appreciate clarification. Please!

Where have the topics been moved to? On the Overview Page there are only four forums left. And none of them is

How can we access this for example?

19 hours ago, Marc said:

If you have a link to it I can move it for you. It also may be for the others that some items are still rebuilding

No, I don't have links to all my topics (beside the ones in the post above), because before that redesign I had my activity streams to monitor my own topics and contributions and see how those topics evolve over time. Now they are all gone. I didn't expect to need to bookmark them all manually for later read!

This is more like a reset than a redesign. And compared to time before this community forum seems dead silent now.

Also the "rebuilding" process was started 6 days ago. I don't think that there are still things in the queue. This forums are still broken.

1 hour ago, Christian Meixner said:

Well, I'd appreciate clarification. Please!

Where have the topics been moved to? On the Overview Page there are only four forums left. And none of them is

How can we access this for example?

As you can see in the links there, that is a community classic area. These have now been split. You would not have access to that area.

1 hour ago, Christian Meixner said:

Also the "rebuilding" process was started 6 days ago. I don't think that there are still things in the queue. This forums are still broken.

I can certainly understand the confusion here, and I’m sorry for that. The topics themselves aren’t broken, however as part of the recent reorganisation and redesign, some content has ended up in areas that certain users may no longer have access to. Unfortunately there wasn’t really a clean or straightforward way for us to fully separate some of these sections during the changes, which is why you may still come across topics like this from time to time.

I’ve moved the topic you mentioned into the appropriate area for you. If you spot any others that seem to be missing or inaccessible, please do feel free to let us know and we’ll gladly help track them down.

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/482137-the-rank-progress-bar-is-calculated-incorrectly/

I have moved all the topics going back the around the last 12 month of yours. Please let us know if you find there is something missing.