[Forum] Can’t Prune Users in AdminCP

[Ion Saliu]

vBulletin 4.1.12PL1; before upgrading, I decided to bulk-remove a bunch of suckers from the members of my forums. I tried this AdminCP, Users, Prune / Move Users. I applied one criterion and the system returned some 1200 users. I made sure all were selected in the checkboxes.

I checked Delete, then I pressed Go. The mouse pointer jumps a few spaces, but nothing really happens. I waited for minutes, but it doesn’t appear to be any activity.

Any ideas how I can really prune members in my forum? I mean, via AdminCP, not some geeky procedure…

Ion Saliu
Forums: Lottery, Lotto, Gambling, Software, Systems

[Ace]

Have you tried pruning fewer members than 1200? Maybe try smaller batches?

[Ion Saliu]

Like clicking MANUALLY on hundreds of users to deselect?! Would I be nuts?

IS
PS
I can see the editor here is going nuts on me … again … It doesn’t respect the formatting of my message in Word … Trying to edit my post …

[Eve_Ra]

For a test, you can deselect all the users on a time, and select manually four or five members for testing.
If it is ok, retry to select all on a time and Go. If it is not ok, try to change your criterion for obtain less than 1200 members.

[Ion Saliu]

Anyway, if there are TOO MANY entries selected, AdminCP should inform me … or ask me to wait … But, right now, it seems that vBulletin does NOT prune users in batches … Doing it manually would be an exercise in insanity …


PS
Oops! The editor seems changed in vB 4.2. It doesn’t paste faithfully from Word, as before. it changes my font to Arial no matter what font I use …

- - - Updated - - -

“you can deselect all the users on a time”

Have you read my post … in English? Deselecting over 1000 users manually is “an exercise in insanity” …

Please, regular members, let vB teamsters take care of this! Thanks to you … but, no, thanks …

[Ace]

Really looking forward to the answer, because it totally seems like you are trying to prune more users than your server can handle.

If you don't want to deselect 1000s of users, maybe you could try restricting the criteria so you have fewer results.

Have you checked your server error logs?

[Ion Saliu]

NO errors in my webhost log file.

Apparently, there is a LIMIT to number of members to prune in one batch. In my case, the limit appears to be 1000.

The criterion was the beginning of my forum in days. The lowest number I got was 1200 members to prune. I clicked like crazy to deselect to a number lower than 1000. It was a hunch (4 digits). It did work, but I repeated the procedure several times.

I would have expected a message from my AdminCP (e.g. “too many users – the limit is 999 or something…”)

Anyway, looks like pruning should be done several times every year. Otherwise, it gets clogged up. By pruning, I’ll keep the database in a sane condition …

Thanks … but, no, thanks…

[Eve_Ra]

Have you read my post … in English? Deselecting over 1000 users manually is “an exercise in insanity” …

And you, you don't understand what I said.

With the case marked in red, you can select/deselect all users at once !

[Ion Saliu]

“And you, you don't understand what I said.

With the case marked in red, you can select/deselect all users at once !”

Wake up — or, better still STFU!

Deselect them ALL, then click 999 times to select fewer than 1000 users!!!

[TheLastSuperman]

Any ideas how I can really prune members in my forum? I mean, via AdminCP, not some geeky procedure…

You can use the tools your currently unsatisfied with OR use a geeky sql query based on a few factors we'll need to define beforehand. Also many members here are very helpful and nice, I myself was once just "another member" yet helped just the same so try to be a little more tactful when seeking help .

[Zachery]

Wake up — or, better still STFU!

Deselect them ALL, then click 999 times to select fewer than 1000 users!!!

Tone your critera down to get less users, then prune off smaller patches. Also, if you can't avoid telling customers things like "stfu" I would suggest you don't post stuff like that.

[Ion Saliu]

Hey, guys, no offense! But it is really irritating when some people just jump in without reading attentively or knowing well what they are talking about. That’s NOT help — it is irritation.

Yes, I was frustrated. I had to wait long minutes believing that my AdminCP was pruning the users (mostly disgusting spammers). After all, the system did not send me any message. I believe it is reasonable to expect a message of some kind, if an operation can’t be performed.

I wrote also in my post that the minimum number of users in a batch was 1200+. My forum is not very old (since September 2010). I applied the criterion for 900 days of inactivity. That gave me some 1200 users at the minimum. That’s when I unchecked manually some 200+ users to get under 1000. Then I repeated the operation several times.

The point is, now I don’t need a system message — but others admins do.

Additionally, admins should be aware that a majority of their vBulletin forums users are spammers. They never login to post, or even read threads. The spammers are there because they create user’s profiles with all kinds of links. Some webmasters even pay services to create vBulletin users and users’ profiles. The search engines severely punish now all forums with lots of fake users with lots of outbound links.

Have a nice day!

[Ace]

Hey, guys, no offense! But it is really irritating when some people just jump in without reading attentively or knowing well what they are talking about. That’s NOT help — it is irritation.

Only, that's not what happened here.

You were given the correct information by me and Eve_Ra (select fewer members). You actually even ended up following it.

Not sure why you still haven't figured out that by decreasing the number of days in your selection, you would have had under 1000, unless 1000 people joined your site per day.

[Ion Saliu]

I had two extremes: 900 days and 200 days (minimum one login quarterly). From tens of thousands (there are lots waiting in the queue not responding to confirmation emails) to that minimum 1200+. But, still, why not a message of some sorts from the system?

But, hey — forget about it!

[Lynne]

The thing is, different servers will allow you to delete a different amount of users at a time. I delete 7,000 at a time and have no problems on my site. It really depends on the site/server(s).