A SuperMod Deleted All 350,000 of my posts

[Sinzar]

I have a forum at http://www.nintendonow.com/forums and one of my super mods betrayed me and the entire site. As you can see we were almost at 350,000 posts. However a lot of the posts and threads still show up in the database but you can't see them.

I don't think he had the ability to physically delete the posts so they're still in the database. Is there a way for me to restore everything? Also, does anyone have any experience with this--legally?

[George L]

I have a forum at http://www.nintendonow.com/forums and one of my super mods betrayed me and the entire site. As you can see we were almost at 350,000 posts. However a lot of the posts and threads still show up in the database but you can't see them.

I don't think he had the ability to physically delete the posts so they're still in the database. Is there a way for me to restore everything? Also, does anyone have any experience with this--legally?

1. first thing to do is close your forum so that only you as admin can view the forum
2. check that super mod's permissions, did he have permission to physically delete messages ?
3. are you sure those deleted posts/threads are still in the database ? remember with vB3 if you hide forums or have forums with post counts not counting towards user's post count total, then the total posts, and threads figure listed on forumhome page do not include those hidden/uncounted posts/threads
4. do you have a daily backup of your database ?

[SaN-DeeP]

I have a forum at http://www.nintendonow.com/forums and one of my super mods betrayed me and the entire site. As you can see we were almost at 350,000 posts. However a lot of the posts and threads still show up in the database but you can't see them.

I don't think he had the ability to physically delete the posts so they're still in the database. Is there a way for me to restore everything? Also, does anyone have any experience with this--legally?

check ur pm asap....
something important. i send u ...

[Sinzar]

Thanks for the response. I'm using VB3 RC 5. How do I check his permissions for "physically deleting" threads?

[]SK[]

Rc 5? Your using Beta5!

[George L]

AFAIK, admincp -> show all moderators -> and edit forum and see if 'can physically' delete is checked or not

if you had a daily backup, you could save yourself the trouble and

1. create new empty mysqldatabase named newdb
2. import backup into this newly created empty database named newdb
3. edit config.php and point to the database named newdb
4. view forums and check if all posts are there as before
5. if it's okay just use the database named newdb and maybe keep the original in case.

make sure the backup you restore is of the same version of vB you're using which is vB3 Beta5

[Breaker]

Rc 5? Your using Beta5!

i would guess it was a typo of RC4

[poolking]

i would guess it was a typo of RC4

Nope, he is actually running Beta 5.

[Jake Bunce]

Check your deletionlog table in your database. For every "soft deleted" post and thread there is an entry in that table. If you have ~350,000 entries in that table then you are in business. Otherwise it's backup time.

You can undelete all "soft deleted" posts and threads by running this query on your database:

DELETE FROM deletionlog

You will need to update your various counters after running this query. Backup first!

Of course this will undelete all posts and threads. If you don't want to undelete all posts and threads then you will need some criteria to distinguish between the ones you want to undelete and the ones you don't.

[Breaker]

and then you should upgrade