Forum Discussion

angela's avatar
angela
Catalyst II
21 days ago

VaultRecycleBin - What can go wrong if I just delete the complete folder?

Hi Community, I´m currently trying to free up some space on our Vault server.  During this process, I noticed that we have accumulated several very large files in the VaultRecycleBin over the years...
Vault
angela's avatar
angela
Catalyst II
21 days ago

Thanks for your answer and tips!

Based on your ideas I used PowerShell to generate a list of all file IDs found in the VaultRecycleBin and compared them with the File Items in Aras via SQL. Good news: Not a single one of those files exists as a File Item in Innovator anymore, so I assume it's safe to delete them.

"I don't know why the files ended up in the VaultRecycleBin. It could potentially be the result of a vault migration, upgrade activity, interrupted file operations, or some cleanup process."

Well... I´ve literally done ALL of that over the years. 😄

In 2022, we moved to a new server, including the Vault Server. Back then, I didn´t fully think things through, and some existing folders ended up with incorrect permissions. It´s all well documented in the forum:

https://community.aras.com/discussions/getting-started/multiple-errors-dophysicalfiles---access-to-the-path-is-denied--when-deleting-fi/10101

I  assume many of my files in the VaultRecycleBin came from that era of my glorous repairs. 

I think the VaultRecycleBin is a security mechanism in Innovator. When a file is deleted, it is moved there instead of being removed immediately, providing a fallback in case something goes wrong.

I have a second Innovator instance that runs for several years know and the VaultRecycleBin is completly empty. Just like there was never an Admin that played around with the file system. 

mconstantin_aras_com's avatar
mconstantin_aras_com
Creator III
20 days ago

Good morning,

I made some research as I'm also interested in understanding how the vault works for this scenario.
Here is the summary of what I found:

  1. Client requests deletion/purge of a File item.
  2. Innovator Server starts the delete operation and identifies the physical files that must be removed.
  3. Innovator Server sends a PrepareDeleteFile request to the Vault Server.
  4. Vault Server prepares the deletion (historically this involves moving the physical file to VaultRecycleBin rather than permanently deleting it yet).
  5. Innovator Server completes and commits the database transaction.
  6. After the database transaction succeeds, Innovator Server sends ConfirmDeleteFile to the Vault Server.
  7. Vault Server permanently removes the file from VaultRecycleBin.
  8. Vault Server returns success to Innovator Server.

 

So Innovator server and Vault server are both handling a part of the process, I can imagine that if the vault has an issue the file can be stuck in the VaultRecycleBin:

  • Innovator Server manages the database transaction (File item records, relationships, references, etc.).
  • Vault Server manages the physical file on disk.

 

Because the operation is distributed across both systems, failures can occur between the PrepareDeleteFile and ConfirmDeleteFile phases.

Regards

Michael