finding attachment
 

How can i find the attachment in filesystem?

Example attachment :
attachment.php?attachmentid=57356

look in the ACP under attachments. Are you even storing them in the File System? The files are given a numeric name, so you cannot just browse the file system and find them.

If you are storing in the FS (and not in the DB) you can search the DB (attachments table) to find the path. Or in the ACP you can Search Attachments, and get the ID that way

The attachments are stored in the File System.

When I go to the forum, the attachment link is: attachment.php?attachmentid=57356

How can I find the attachment in the attachment directory?

They are stored by userid. So, go to the attachment directory and if the userid is 1234, then look in the directory /1, then in /2, then in /3, and then in /4 and it should be in there.

Most attachment from certain user arent showing anymore. I tried searching the filenames via SSH but they are on different directories. Scattered everywhere in different USERIDs.

Manually moving of the attachment files (.thumb and .attach) doesnt make the attachments show.
How can I make the attachments work again? Simply moving the files didnt work..

You cannot just go moving attachments from one directory to another.

What is the exact problem you were having when you started this thread? You never said exactly. I simply told you were the attachments were stored. To get the actual .attach and .thumb number, you need to look at the attachment table, look up the attachmentid and get the filedataid. They will be listed as filedataid.attach and filedataid.thumb in the file system.

Have you recently upgraded to 4.2.3?

Its in post #5
Most attachment from certain users arent showing anymore. I tried searching the filenames via SSH but they are on different directories. Scattered everywhere in different USERIDs.

Yes you are correct..

There's a bug in 4.2.3 where attachments get deleted on upgrading to 4.2.3. In previous versions of vbulletin there was a bug in the daily cron cleanup script that prevented unused attachments from being deleted. That bug was fixed in 4.2.3. The problem was the refcount field in the filedata table could have incorrect values in it, specifically 0 (i.e. unused filedata) when it shouldn't, making vbulletin think an attachment isn't being used when it in fact is being used.

So when the bug preventing unused filedata from being removed was fixed it removed all unused filedata which included the filedata with bad refcounts. Short of having a backup of the attachments directory from before the upgrade there's no way to recover the lost attachments.

We have backup of the forum directory including the attachments folder prior to upgrade. Is it possible to recover the attachments using that copy?