I finally replicated the issue, it seems like it only happens when you press the “search button” more than once. I was asked to wait for 4 minutes but when I typed in my word and clicked “search” everything worked.
Mmm...I don't know about that; the search function has always been pretty damn slow for me, and I did figure out early on that hitting the button more than once gives you the big ol' stop sign tread93 described.
But that's not even the worst part of the forum's search functionality--the results you get are disorganized and it's been my experience that they rarely help me find what I'm looking for. And yes I do know about the alternative way of using google to search, but Theymos really ought to fix stuff like this. I don't mind the old-school look, but a broken search function is just bad.