Apparently it is still possible to search for '%%%' in search.php with eFiction 3.5.81 and show stories from all users instead of no results.
This is patched on my own fork, but just letting you (and anyone reading this) know.
Amusingly, I triggered this by accident a few days ago by testing random repeating characters, and they happened to be the percent sign, lol. Confused me for a moment, like the nonexistent co-authors Error 500 PHP 8 bug in includes/userlist.php I ran into nearly two months ago.
Site: http://cwcyrix.nsupdate.info/fhaven/ (private, archived)
Version: eFiction 3.5.3
Modules: Challenges 1.4, Recs 1.4.2
PHP: 5.6.40, self-patched
Other Setups (same server):
Test Site 1: http://cwcyrix.nsupdate.info/ef-testing-grounds/ (eFiction 3 Mod - chaotic, PHP 8.6.0RC4)
Test Site 2: http://cwcyrix.nsupdate.info/eee/ (eFiction 3 Mod - stable, PHP 8.5.12)
Test Site 3: http://cwcyrix.nsupdate.info/ef-clean/ (patched 'future' eFiction 3.5.9, self-patched PHP 7.4.33)
Rest of Server Details
OS - Distro: Ubuntu Linux Server 26.04 LTS (home)
Web Server: Apache httpd 2.4.69
MariaDB: 11.4.13