XF 1.5 What is the board message total based upon?

[051119]

The homepage on my AdminCP and the forum homepage say that we have just over 3,023,700 posts (it was like this before but I just ran the board totals cron job to be sure).

However in my xf_post table there are 3,090,353 rows. The post IDs go over 3,229,000.

What is the board total based upon? Having done a few tests, soft deleting a post doesn't reduce the count although a hard delete does. Even if I do a SQL Query for posts that only show as 'visible,' or 'visible' AND 'moderated' it still shows fewer than 3,023,700 rows in the table.

How can I accurately determine how many posts I have (I'm trying to identify the 3 Millionth post), and what is the post count based upon, as it doesn't appear to be based upon the number of posts that exist in the database?

 

[Kier]

The totals are based on counters that get incremented whenever a post is made and decremented whenever one is deleted via a moderation action - but the counters do not decrease if posts are deleted via a direct database query or a prune action etc.,

Ultimately, the number of posts in your xf_post table is how many posts you have, but if your post IDs go beyond 3m, then post_id=3,000,000 would be the three millionth post to your board, even if that many no longer exist in the DB.

 

[051119]

Thanks for your prompt reply Kier. I tested by posting a post and running the counters whilst the forum was disabled, it increased the board total by 1. I then deleted it (soft delete) via my Admin account and the post count stayed the same after I ran the cron job.

When I upgraded to xF start of Oct the board total was about 2,930,000, and now it is about 3,023,000. However row 3,000,000 dates from Sept.