Searching for “notepad” on DuckDuckGo yields zero results

It seems that anything that returns "++" (EDIT: in the "About" box), in this case "Notepad++", breaks their internal regex because it seems not to be sanitized properly

The breaking code using chrome dev tools seems to be:

n = new RegExp("^(https?://)?([\\w\\.-_]\\.)?" + o.toLowerCase().replace(/[-\s]/g, "") + "\\.");

In this case "o" is "Notepad++" which might be the first result.

The browser returns this error:

Invalid regular expression: /^(https?://)?([\w\.-_]\.)?notepad++\./: Nothing to repeat

Also happens with C++ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=c%2B%2B&t=ffab&ia=web

Hi all (CEO & Founder, DuckDuckGo here). Looks like something may have broken in a release that went out today -- it is triggering a JS error. We're looking into it now and should have it resolved soon.

UPDATE: this should be fixed now.

Using POST, HTTP/1.0 and lite.duckduckgo.com, with no Javascript of course, I got results. Not suggesting any of those are requirements. I'm just reporting that the no results experience is not universal.

Here is the first page of results:

  https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
  https://onlinenotepad.org/notepad
  https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/9MSMLRH6LZF3?hl=en-us&gl=US
  https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.5/
  https://sourceforge.net/projects/notepadplusplus.mirror/
  https://notepad.js.org/
  https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.1.9.3/
  https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.1/
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help-in-notepad-4d68c388-2ff2-0e7f-b706-35fb2ab88a8c
  https://www.techspot.com/downloads/2010-notepad.html
  https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus
  https://www.onlinenotepad.io/
  https://anotepad.com/
  https://www.howtogeek.com/902619/open-notepad-in-windows/
  https://notepad.plus/
  https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/
  https://www.digitalcitizen.life/start-notepad-windows/
  https://notepad.uptodown.com/windows
  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/notepad
  http://www.my-notepad.net/
  https://notepad.id.uptodown.com/windows
  https://notepad-classic-windows-10.en.softonic.com/

         usage: echo query string|1.sh > 1.htm
                firefox ./1.htm
                links -no-connect ./1.htm
    
         #!/bin/sh
         
         h=duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion
         h=lite.duckduckgo.com
         read x;
         x=q=$(echo "$x"|yy046);
         export httpMethod=POST;
         export Content_Type=application/x-www-form-urlencoded;
         export Content_Length=${#x};
         export httpVersion=1.0;
         export Connection=close;
         echo https://$h/lite/|yy025|if sed w/dev/stderr;then 
          echo $x;echo $x >&2;fi \
         |socat stdio,ignoreeof tcp:127.22.10.55:80

For that query, the Chrome developer tools console spits an error like so:

>d.7527c434450544045365.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: /^(https?://)?([\w\.-_]*\.)?notepad++\./: Nothing to repeat (at

I feel like Google has the same issue. Nowadays, searching for anything on Google yields between 3 and 17 results. Few years ago, I received millions of results for the same searches.

so does "cplusplus"

It seems to have to do with some kind of metadata is fetched and then used as a regular expression (to change markup in some other part of the page?); it's assumed that the text can be used as a regular expression without quotation but in the case of the doubled "+" character it becomes a non-valid RE.

Seems to happen with any query containing "otepad".

"Windows os" instead yields just nonsense

What causes this?

Unrelated to this issue, but I get peeved when HN commenters rave how DuckDuckGo results are far superior to Google's, and yet the other day I entered "DuckDNS" on DDG, and it was nowhere to be scene in the top 3 pages. Meanwhile on Google and Brave Search, it is the first result.