• Registered: 2008-10-12
  • Posts: 6

Topic: Manually remove posts from the database?

I set up a PunBB forum for a friend and it got spammed pretty bad (thousands and thousands of spam messages). So, I backed up the database, upgraded to 1.3.2, removed all the spam message manually from the database (I wasn't really sure how else to do it) and rebuilt the index. However, when I went back into the forum all of the spam messages were still there. How do I:

1. remove all the spam messages (if removing them manually wasn't the right way to go about it)?
2. make the changes in the database be reflected on the forum?

  • Registered: 2008-10-12
  • Posts: 6

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

Since I didn't receive an answer I decided to go in and "prune" the forum and I just removed everything. This got rid of the spam messages, but it also got rid of the legit messages. Since I backed up the database I was able to go into the SQL file, grab the legit posts (there were only a handful) and manually add them back to the database. However, the same thing is happening, the forum shows no messages whatsoever despite me having added the messages back into the database and rebuilding the index.

So, does anyone know how to get the forum to see what is in the database? There must be some way to do this.

Also, I've installed and activated the Akismet extension and required logins for posting and this seems to have stopped the onslaught of spam messages. Now I just need to get the legit messages back into the forum and we'll be good to go. Any ideas?

3 Reply by User33 (edited by User33 2009-01-08 20:30)

  • User33
  • PunBB senior member
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  • Registered: 2008-02-03
  • Posts: 875

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

I while ago I made an Akismet extension, which is supposed to stop spammers. You should try it. The link is in my signature.

  • Registered: 2008-10-12
  • Posts: 6

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

Hey Garciat. I actually already installed the Akismet extension (see my reply in this post). Thanks for the suggestion though!

5 Reply by User33 (edited by User33 2009-01-08 20:53)

  • User33
  • PunBB senior member
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  • Registered: 2008-02-03
  • Posts: 875

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

Oh, sorry, I didn't read the whole post smile

Well, that's weird... the changes you make to the database should reflect on the forum instantly (they do on my test forum)...

What kind of database are you using?

6 Reply by derekpcollins (edited by derekpcollins 2009-01-08 21:03)

  • Registered: 2008-10-12
  • Posts: 6

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

Its a MySQL database. I just went in through phpMyAdmin (that's what this host uses) and ran the SQL to add the rows back to the database.

My experience has been that any changes I make to the database aren't reflected at all in the forum, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I added the messages back to the "posts" table--that's the correct table, no?

I was thinking that there was some kind of cacheing going on, but its been a couple of days since I made the changes to the database and still nothing shows up.

  • User33
  • PunBB senior member
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  • Registered: 2008-02-03
  • Posts: 875

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

Maybe the table prefixes don't match.

  • Registered: 2008-10-12
  • Posts: 6

Re: Manually remove posts from the database?

After taking a closer look at the database, I realized that I had failed to add the "topics" back in. Once I did this, the topics showed back up in the database, but the "posts" in those topics didn't. I'm assuming that this is the same reason that the spam topics still showed up in the forum after I had removed all of them from the posts table.

But, it looks like "posts" and the "topics" tables aren't matching up (despite the id's matching), so I've still been unable to get the posts back into the forum.

Since there were only a few legit posts in the forum, I'm seeing if my friend can just go back in and repost them. I was able to get all the legit posts out of the database.

Thanks for your help Garciat. I'll post any updates to the situation here if there are any.