Unable to search metatags with only excluded tags.

albert said:
So the reason I don't really like supporting this feature is that a malicious user could perform searches like id:>0 -tag and if they spammed this query it could really bring down the database server. There's no way for me to predict a priori whether a metatag will reduce the query to a small subset, or a huge one. It doesn't even have to be malicious in intent, a lot of people just run bots that download every link on a page and they can start exploring the excluded tag searches. I realize it's an extremely powerful tool, but it comes at a cost.

Anyway, for now at least, you should be able to combine -tags with metatags.

I'm still getting the error when searching for rating:safe -anytag

slayerduck said:
I'm still getting the error when searching for rating:safe -anytag

you can try this: rating:safe -cameltoe * or you can blacklist the tag you want to exclude.

Though rating:safe doesn't exactly reduce the query to a small subset...

albert said:
Anyway, for now at least, you should be able to combine -tags with metatags.

order:score -breasts and rating:s -breasts both still give me "Error: You cannot search for only excluded tags".

order:score doesn't limit things at all (it's as hard on the database as a negative-only query by itself).

Also as I mentioned above, limiting rating really doesn't narrow things down that much either. If you really need it though, the rating:safe -breasts * pattern ghostrigger mentioned does work.

Yeah, I know, I was just saying that albert's statement wasn't exactly the case--"order" and "rating" are still "metatags".

Is there a way to fix this, or is it a recurring problem like with the occasional subscription update downtime?

Nothing to fix it was intentionally disabled because it was breaking everything else.