XF 1.5 Can't delete threads, some do but "don't" exist

[TheLaw]

So here's a good one. I've got a site which was dormant for a short while but recently hit by some Russian spammers. I can see the posts. But I can't delete them, even as superadmin. And then I tried to search by user to see their posts and I get zero as the total of some of their posts. I tried the batch admin tool. It says that the messages were deleted but they aren't deleted. I see that there are a few dozen messages that aren't registering as as messages. Going to the user profile and doing a search on their latest content shows nothing.

 

[TheLaw]

So the answer to part of this question is.... CloudFlare + nginx doing caching can play havoc with your XF site and make it look like ghosts are reappearing. The setup at a new host is proving challenging.