FAQs

At CCDC, we have been working on improving the way we store entry information in the CSD and, to make the most of this effort, we have rewritten ConQuest's search engine from scratch using modern technologies. The new search engine gives more accurate results and improves speed for many searches.

Successive update releases during 2018 have increased the search types that will use this new search engine and with the Update 3 release of the 2018 CSD-System, the default behaviour is that ConQuest will use the new search engine for almost all search types.

In order to provide a seamless transition from the older method used by previous versions of ConQuest, Update 3 also adds the "Use legacy search engine" option in ConQuest's Options->Search Engine Settings menu to allow you to force use of the older search engine. Once set in ConQuest, this option will remain in effect for both ConQuest and CQBatch until changed. This allows use of the old search system in case you want to replicate results obtained from an earlier release, or in case of any difficulty being found with the newer search engine.

Please note that this option will not be available in future versions of ConQuest. As we are closing the functionality gap, we are retiring the old search engine in the November 2018 release.

As this is new functionality, we are particularly keen to hear of any issues with the new search engine you may encounter, be this unusually slow searches, or an error of any kind. If use of  "Use legacy search engine" results in significantly better performance or stops an error being given, please forward on details of your search to support@ccdc.cam.ac.uk. For performance issues please also detail if the CSD database files are stored locally or are accessed from a remote network location and if the latter, please detail what type of remote access is being used.