[TwinsX2Dad]

Originally Posted by Gamingforce

I really do think it's 100% safe because MySQL locks the table from updates/inserts while it's optimizing it.

You are 100% correct. No danger in optimizing while the board is live UNLESS you were also manually changing the DB - even then, the risk is so slight as to not be concerned.

Originally Posted by Loki12

Is anyone going to answer this question?

There is no difference between this process and the vB optimize/repair feature, which is just an overlay to doing it directly in your DB, except that this is automatic.

When running a DB process like this, you can choose 'repair' which simply fixes corrupted tables, which are repairable. You can also choose 'optimize' which first repairs (if needed), then optimizes (removes dupes and unneeded entries). You can always use 'optimize' unless you're manually editing the DB and trying to find out what is happening.

This hack uses the 'optimize' command. I guess if you were to need to manually work your DB, a process few have a handle on, you could disable this hack, do your work, then enable it when all is done.

I've run automated DB optimization scripts for a long time - on vB (or IPB) databases, as well as DBs for other purposes and I've never had a problem. The difference between those scripts and this one is that this is housed within vB and is free.

So, go ahead and use it. It is a good thing.