Possible Table Column Deletions During Element Trash Empty

[bascherz]

I was emptying element trash just a little while ago and suddenly hundreds of users were complaining that the site was down. The amount of accumulated element trash was extremely high. I was just going through it trying to clean things up. Could this cause all but the id, name, and email columns to be deleted from my #__users table? Obviously, this is pretty serious. Could there be a bug that bad in Fabrik?

 

[juuser]

One should be extremely careful while dropping columns while clearing trash. Especially elements referring to core tables or repeat table elements. It should work in theory, but I have noticed that e.g. when dropping related table id columns, it would drop the main table id etc.

That's why I always make a backup before doing any larger cleanup.

 

[troester]

After you have selected some elements in your trash and clicked "Emtyp trash" you'll get this window


You must NOT check an element here if you don't want to delete the associated database column.
"Save" without checking the elements will delete the elements but keep the database untouched.

That's why I always make a backup before doing any larger cleanup.

Yup.

 

[bascherz]

Oh god I feel so completely stupid for not realizing this was happening. Makes me wonder now what else might have gotten deleted and what's going to work or not work once I bring the site back online. Thanks for setting me straight. Backups are current, but cleanup could be tricky.