Wordpress search failed on special characters due to improper decode
Ok, so you do have to decode the search query and here's how I have it working and works like a charm now! This now returns the search results, but keeps the url encoded so no problems anywhere here.
function livchem_search_filter($s) { return urldecode($s);}add_filter('get_search_query', 'livchem_search_filter');add_filter('the_search_query', 'livchem_search_filter');function livchem_query_vars_search_filter($query){ if ($query->is_search && !is_admin()) { $query->query_vars['s'] = urldecode($query->query_vars['s']); } return $query;}add_action('parse_query', 'livchem_query_vars_search_filter');As a plus this also works well for path related searches now, so if I added the following to my .htaccess:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} s=(.*)RewriteRule ^$ /search/%1? [R,L]Searches would be structured like so: /search/searchterm
And the query with special characters also now works. what a pain in the neck this was to get working properly, for something that is part of the CMS.