Can't prune inactive users

[Snowhog]

vBulletin 4.2.0

I'm attempting to prune (delete) inactive members in our forum.

Admin CP > Users > Prune / Move Users

with the following settings:

All usergroups
Has not logged in for 365 days
Join Date is Before August 1, 2012 (I've even left this 'blank')
Posts is less than 1
Order By Name

This results with: Showing Users 1 to 6750 of 6750, and they are all 'checked'. When I select Action: Delete and click Go, vBulletin reports:

Invalid Action Specified followed by No Users Matched your Query

What gives? Why is vBulletin identifying the desired inactive users, but then says I've selected an invalid action and that no users matched my query, when obviously, it did!?

Added: Got it figured out. Apparently there is a limit to the number of records that can be marked for deletion at one time, which seems to be 1,000. I have been able to delete the 6,750 inactive users.

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by Snowhog

Added: Got it figured out. Apparently there is a limit to the number of records that can be marked for deletion at one time, which seems to be 1,000. I have been able to delete the 6,750 inactive users.

That is a limitation on your server, not vbulletin.

Try Has Not Logged In for 500 days and see if you get a smaller group. Then for 450 days, then ..... just change the number of days until you only have less than 1000 and do it like that.

[dougdirac]

Interesting. I had about 4000 members to purge. It let me do the operation, and I though it was done. But to check, I did the search again, and I still had about 3000 members left to purge. I had to perform the operation a few more times until they were all gone. It never gave me an error message, but still only deleted about 1000 at a time.

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by dougdirac

Interesting. I had about 4000 members to purge. It let me do the operation, and I though it was done. But to check, I did the search again, and I still had about 3000 members left to purge. I had to perform the operation a few more times until they were all gone. It never gave me an error message, but still only deleted about 1000 at a time.

Your PHP script probably timed out and you didn't know it. If you looked at your error_logs from the time you did this, I'll bet you'll have a PHP timeout error listed.

[Nirjonadda]

It's a php limit in php.ini file.By default the max_input_vars is set to 1000, If you have access to the php.ini file you can add this:

max_input_vars = 5000

Or

Options php.ini file:

max_input_vars = 1000000
suhosin.post.max_vars = 1000000
suhosin.request.max_vars = 1000000

After prune ended must changed all values back to original 1000.

[filmking]

Does pruning a member, delete their posts?

[Lynne]

No, it does not delete the posts.

[K-fab]

What a simple way around the issue. Thank you. Worked like a charm.