XF 2.2 Is it normal for a database size to shrink almost 1/3 it's size on it's own?

[Brad Padgett]

I am starting to wonder now if my staff are deleting posts on my forum. I've noticed my database gzip backup size will shrink at least 5mb every 2 weeks. It's current size is around 24mb but was 35mb just 20 days ago. So one day it's 35 mb and around 3 weeks later it loses almost a third it's size.

I don't know what to do because I only have one staff member but none of the moderator logs show anything has been deleted. I have noticed certain threads I thought had more posts in them don't have as many. The crazy part about this is if posts are really getting deleted they are taking their time with it and only deleting a few at a time here and there so I can't recover from a backup.

Is it normal for gzip backups to shrink even if the content amount is the same, and by that much?

 

[webbouk]

Set their permissions so that they can only soft delete them and then use an add-on such as this to check what's been deleted if any:

Show deleted

Description: Show a list of soft deleted content and option to hard delete. (Example of Show deleted link in visitor navigation tab) (Example of Show deleted page) (Example of Undelete by username overlay) (Example of Options page)...

www.xf2addons.com

 

[🔥Iggy🔥]

1/3 sounds like alot....10mb not so much...

esp if images are involved...not saying you shouldnt check up about it but it could be a smaller target than you think dep what was actually removed.

 

[Brad Padgett]

@Iggy the 10mb on gzip though which is a compressed form of backup for what it's showing. We have close to 7,000 posts. I just want to make sure that while the database was 35mb and 2 weeks later was 24mb that it could be possibly normal for gzip?

I have a hard time believing my moderator would do that but even if he's not, I still have no way to know why the size keeps decreasing. Simply need verification that there isn't something else going on no matter what the cause may be.

 

[djbaxter]

I am starting to wonder now if my staff are deleting posts on my forum. I've noticed my database gzip backup size will shrink at least 5mb every 2 weeks. It's current size is around 24mb but was 35mb just 20 days ago. So one day it's 35 mb and around 3 weeks later it loses almost a third it's size.

I don't know what to do because I only have one staff member but none of the moderator logs show anything has been deleted. I have noticed certain threads I thought had more posts in them don't have as many. The crazy part about this is if posts are really getting deleted they are taking their time with it and only deleting a few at a time here and there so I can't recover from a backup.

Set their permissions so that they can only soft delete them and then use an add-on such as this to check what's been deleted if any:

Show deleted

Description: Show a list of soft deleted content and option to hard delete. (Example of Show deleted link in visitor navigation tab) (Example of Show deleted page) (Example of Undelete by username overlay) (Example of Options page)...

www.xf2addons.com

Whatever the reason, the solution is easy as @webbouk said: Never let moderators hard delete anything.

 

[Paul B]

esp if images are involved

Images are not stored in the database so that wouldn't be a factor.

In general, databases increase in size over time so any reduction in size is not typical and potentially points to (hard) deleted content.

 

[Brad Padgett]

@Brogan the only thing is the forum statistics are still showing the same amounts. So this is a bit odd. If posts are getting deleted it's in some strange way where there's no possible way to tell. Moderator logs show nothing nor do my admin logs and the statistics remain the same. Do you think it's possible for an add-on to be the culprit? And your sure that even gzip backup database size wouldn't decrease based on compression?

 

[Paul B]

If the thread and post counts aren't changing then content hasn't been deleted.

Most likely the reduction in size is related to other tables which contain temporary data, such as logs, history, searches, email queue, etc.

Removing styles, add-ons, nodes, etc. would also result in a smaller database.

 

[Brad Padgett]

Thanks for the help. Not quite sure what temporary data could be 11 mb but nonetheless I appreciate the response. It could be possible one of the add-ons is storing temporary data that gets deleted over time. Not quite sure.

 

[Paul B]

Not quite sure what temporary data could be 11 mb

For reference, on my site right now the mail queue is 45MB, edit history is 29MB, ip 15Mb.

All of those tables (along with others) will fluctuate in size as content drops in and out of the tables.

 

[webbouk]

only have one staff member

I wouldn't go throwing any accusations around either as you could end up with none

 

[Brad Padgett]

That wasn't necessary. I have no trouble finding staff on a forum with almost 7,000 posts so take your comments elsewhere.

 

[Rhody]

Perhaps the culprit is some kind of logs that were artificially inflated due to some incident in the past, at the end of the pruning limit, and theyre just being cleaned up now? (like if you had a misconfiguration with tens of thousands of errors logged in an hour, a botnet or DOS attack, etc)

 

[webbouk]

That wasn't necessary. I have no trouble finding staff on a forum with almost 7,000 posts so take your comments elsewhere.

Eh???

You need to take a rain check on your attitude, my post was simply pointing out that if you accuse your staff member of something they have not or are not doing as you have done so on here, you might find that they'll no longer be with you.

Forum with 7,000 posts - wtf - come back and lecture me when you have several more 00's behind your count and have learnt how to read.