Thread: Maintenance Message?

After you initiate the maintenance process it says in the online help "NOTE: These tasks can take a while to complete. Once you click 'Go' to start the process, do not interact with the admin site until you see the completed message. All currently logged-in admin users will be logged out."

Where is this message displayed? Is it on the initial admin login screen? If so how long does it stay there?

Also will running the maintenance help with viewing customer quicker? Right now it takes forever to pull up the customer page.

Can anyone explain it to me?

We had a outside vendor setup the shop and there was never any training on the maintenance.

When you run the maintenance it is at the bottom of that page and usually displays a clock in seconds ticking forward. Once the maintenance is complete it should take you back to the admin login screen where you will need to login again.

This is because it will log all admins out including yourself.

As for the customer page it can take a while to pull up. When running maintenance I would advise clearing the profile table and also indexing your site so this will fine tune the issues you may have. We also remove anon customers too.

If in doubt always back up your database first before running this.

Skriver, when i start the process it logs me out but when I do log back in and go to "run Maintenance" it does show a timer.

What is the typical run time? Oour ADNSF has increased to 30gb and we need to bring that number down so therefore I was planning on running the maintenance to delete some anon shopping carts and etc...

Would running this bring the DB size down? We have never ran maintenace since we've had this for 2 years and were never told about this maintenance tool.

I recommend running it every two weeks (though its called monthly). Our current log file is around 95gb so 30 is nothing to really be worried about

I usually run it to shrink the profile table, remove anon customers and index the db. I don't tend to worry about clearing wish lists etc at the top.

It usually takes me around 20-25 seconds to run the above.

Originally Posted by Skriver

I recommend running it every two weeks (though its called monthly). Our current log file is around 95gb so 30 is nothing to really be worried about

I usually run it to shrink the profile table, remove anon customers and index the db. I don't tend to worry about clearing wish lists etc at the top.

It usually takes me around 20-25 seconds to run the above.

I noticed in the DB there is a backup_orders_shoppingcart does anyone know what the point of this table is other than keeping a backup of the orders_shoppingcart?

Is there a way to prune / manage the orders_shoppingcart table?

backup_orders_shoppingcart is an 'out of the box' table, so it sounds like someone was trying to archive off old orders at some point on your site.

'Pruning' that table would essentially mean archiving off the data. You'd want to move out all the rows from before X date you pick (2 years ago, 1 year ago, whatever you decide) and save them elsewhere, then nuke those rows from the existing table. Make sure you get the related rows from associated tables as well (orders, orders_kitcart, etc) where necessary, and make a backup of everything before you start!

So it sounds like there is no easy way to run a process in the admin that would clean it up?

I'm just looking for the best solution to reduce our DB size from it's current 30GB+.

The Monthly Maintenance is very important, especially on large sites! It re-indexes tables which is perhaps one of the most performance important tasks!

Also, if your DB is 30GB + please make sure your log file is not out of control...I bet your actually DB mdf file is much smaller and rest of space is taken up by the log...

Originally Posted by jsimacek

The Monthly Maintenance is very important, especially on large sites! It re-indexes tables which is perhaps one of the most performance important tasks!

Also, if your DB is 30GB + please make sure your log file is not out of control...I bet your actually DB mdf file is much smaller and rest of space is taken up by the log...

If it is the log, what's the best way to get it sized down? I did look at the DB tables and order_shoppingcart table was very sizable.

There are a couple of things, but best would be to try and shrink it first or detach/add a new log file. You might want to have your host/DBA look into this/do it for you.

Ok I'll talk to my system admins to see if they can do anything about it.