The search function on PN 0.64 (and 0.63, I believe) is dependent on having the name of the 'authors' or admins that are on the _authors table of your db. This basically means that if you are the admin, and you decide to change your 'username,' your searches won't turn up anything, except for new articles posted under your new username.
If you've changed your admin name, or any of the people adminning your site have, it might not be a bad idea to see if all searches really do turn up results.
The work-around is to add an admin (Administration/Edit Admins) who has the name that was posted under which was subsequently changed or deleted. This is not as easy as it sounds. It isn't the name you see in the 'Posted by...' in the article box; if you've forgotten the name, you need to check the table _stories in your db in the third cell of the table, called 'aid.' Here you will find the name that has to be present for these articles to show up in the search.
In Administration/Edit admins, it is this name which must be present as a "user name" (not "name"). So just add another admin, with whatever for a password or name, with this user name--you don't have to give the user any permissions/responsibilities. And then hopefully your search will work again.
Hints for budding fascists and censors: if you are your site's 'super-user,' and having idealogical disagreements with one of your editors, kick this editor out on the street, you can prepare your readers for the removal of this heretical editors' articles by changing his user name in your db, or removing it entirely. The articles will still appear on the main page(s), but won't show in any searches (and hopefully nobody will notice)! After a few months, when these articles are 6 or 7 pages back (if you're using NPNews), your readers will have forgotten this unfortunate person entirely and you may remove the articles without an eruption of the vox populi.
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