Chapter 5

Backup first!

Make sure that you have an up-to-date backup before carrying out the repair/optimize process.

It is recommended that you run the repair/optimize process twice to make sure all problems are fixed.

Some Maintenance Issues

The Update Counters page enables you to change many of the counters in the database.

Take your time

This process can take a lot of time—there is no way to rush it, so it's best to start it and leave it to finish on its own.

These counters are important for the smooth running of the database, but they may require updating following a change to the database. These are some of the changes that you may need to make:

•Update the forums

This feature will update the information for each forum including last post information, thread count, and post count. This operation can be carried out after a mass moving or pruning of threads and posts.

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Administering Your Forum

•Update user titles

This will go through every user on the forums and determine their correct user title.

•Update user names

This will update user names everywhere they occur on your forums. This operation may need to be done after changing a user's name in the AdminCP.

•Update post counts

This will update the post count for each user by counting how many posts they have in the database. If someone has artificially inflated or deflated post counts by editing profiles in the AdminCP, then this procedure will reset the post counts to their

true values.

•Fix broken user profiles

This will fix any broken user profiles.

•Rebuild forum information

This will update the forum counters (post counts) and also check for orphan moderators. You may need to do this after merging or deleting threads or posts in your forums.

•Rebuild thread information

This will update the thread counters including last post information, reply count, and view count. You may need to do this after moving or pruning threads or posts.

•Rebuild similar threads

This will search the forums for threads that are similar to each other. To show similar threads you need to enable the option in the vBulletin options. If you want your forums to search for similar threads when a new thread is posted (rather than having to update this counter later), then you need to enable the option on this page.

•Rebuild search index

This will need to be done after changing the max/min search word length in the vBulletin options.

•Rebuild statistics

This will rebuild the information that is displayed on the vBulletin Statistics page.

•Rebuild post cache

vBulletin doesn't parse vB code in posts each time they are displayed. Instead the parsed posts are saved in the post_parsed table. This reduces the processing time needed to display a post. Updating this counter will rebuild the parsed posts. This needs to be done after changing vB codes or posting allowances.

•Delete duplicate threads

Sometimes duplicate threads are created during the posting process. Updating this counter will remove those duplicates.

•Rebuild styles

Updating this counter will rebuild the style structure.

•Rebuild attachment thumbnails

Rebuilding thumbnails is necessary after changing the thumbnail settings in the vBulletin options.

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