XF 1.5 Mysqli prepare error: Unknown column 'user_id' in 'where clause'

[jim83]

I got a strange error when trying to login to the admin control panel today:


Zend_Db_Statement_Mysqli->_prepare() in Zend/Db/Statement.php at line 115
Zend_Db_Statement->__construct() in Zend/Db/Adapter/Mysqli.php at line 381
Zend_Db_Adapter_Mysqli->prepare() in Zend/Db/Adapter/Abstract.php at line 478
Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract->query() in Zend/Db/Adapter/Abstract.php at line 825
Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract->fetchOne() in XenForo/Model/Admin.php at line 203
XenForo_Model_Admin->getAdminPermissionCacheForUser() in XenForo/Visitor.php at line 276
XenForo_Visitor->hasAdminPermission() in XenForo/Model/AdminNavigation.php at line 350
XenForo_Model_AdminNavigation->filterUnviewableAdminNavigation() in XenForo/Model/AdminNavigation.php at line 406
XenForo_Model_AdminNavigation->getAdminNavigationForDisplay() in XenForo/Dependencies/Admin.php at line 227
XenForo_Dependencies_Admin->_getNavigationContainerParams() in XenForo/Dependencies/Admin.php at line 205
XenForo_Dependencies_Admin->getEffectiveContainerParams() in XenForo/FrontController.php at line 637
XenForo_FrontController->renderView() in XenForo/FrontController.php at line 158
XenForo_FrontController->run() in /home/on3pointsadmin/public_html/admin.php at line 13

I had my host check the database error log. This is what they found:

2017-10-29 20:28:18 7f8fcaffd700 InnoDB: FTS Optimize Removing table ***db/#sql2-360-28ca
2017-10-29 20:37:37 7f8fcaffd700 InnoDB: FTS Optimize Removing table ***db/#sql2-360-2912

Luckily, I made a database backup on 10/27/2017 so I only lost a few days. The site is now working properly again since I restored the backup. However, I definitely don't want this to happen again.

Can anyone help me to figure out what happened?

 

[Mike]

Somehow an important and fundamental column got dropped from the xf_admin table. This isn't something that XF would do (nor would it be likely for an add-on to do it).

It's difficult to suggest what may have caused it. The only thing that seems likely is a server issue of some sort. Beyond that, someone getting access to your database, though that sounds reasonably unlikely as well.