[rt-users] missing peoples problem

[Ken Crocker]

Jerrad,

It looks to me as though the actual User record is missing from the USER 
Table. The reason the history croaks is because RT is walking thru the 
ticket history and there is a reference to a UserID that no longer 
exists. You need to look at the Transaction history to determine what is 
missing. This is what I have been doing:

1) Find all transactions for a ticket that might refer to a User. I use 
this SQL:
Select *
from TRANSACTIONS
where OBJECTTYPE = 'RT::Ticket'
  and Type in ('AddWatcher', 'DelWatcher', 'Force', 'Give', 'Steal', 
'Take', 'Untake');

Select *
from TRANSACTIONS
where OBJECTTYPE = 'RT::Ticket'
  and CREATOR in (61876);

This will allow you to determine the UserID that is missing. Then I look 
for all instances for that User:

Select *
from TRANSACTIONS
where OBJECTTYPE = 'RT::Ticket'
  and Type in ('AddWatcher', 'DelWatcher', 'Force', 'Give', 'Steal', 
'Take', 'Untake')
  and NewValue in ('61876'); I also use this with "NewValue as well.

Once you do this for all missing Users, you will have a list of who is 
missing.

2) Next, I check all the various Tables that could have references to 
the missing UserID:

Select *
from GROUPMEMBERS
where MEMBERID in (61876);

Select *
from ACL
Where ObjectType = 'RT::Queue'
and PRINCIPALID in (61876);

select *
from CACHEDGROUPMEMBERS
where MEMBERID in (61876, 61877);

Select *
from ATTRIBUTES
where CREATOR in (61876)
   or OBJECTID in (61876);

Select *
from TICKETS
where OWNER in (61876)
  or  CREATOR in (61876)
  or  LASTUPDATEDBY in (61876);

Select *
from ATTACHMENTS
where CREATOR in (161876);

For referencing purposes, I also look for every ticket where that User 
was used:

Select *
from GROUPS
where INSTANCE = 61876;

This last SQL will give an Id number based on the type of  group/role. 
There will be a Group record for each instance of use per ticket. If 
that User is a Requestor and an owner, there will be 2 records one with 
type = "Requestor" and one with type = "owner".. Each will point to the 
ticket with that particular relationship. The Domain field will describe 
the relationship ie. "RT::Ticket-Role".

Anyway, I think you get the jist of this. Once you do this for each and 
every missing User, you will be able to /manually modify/ these records 
using SQL. This is how:

   1. Create a new user that will be, in fact, a replacement for the
      missing one.
   2. Once you have created the new user, you will have a new UserID
      that corresponds to this new User.
   3. That new UserID is what you put into all those table records that
      are using the OLD UserID.

This has to be done manually because the old UserID is missing. So, you 
have to replace all the references to that OLD ID with the NEW ID. Does 
that make sense?

Kenn
LBNL


On 12/8/2009 2:22 PM, Jerrad Pierce wrote:
>> I suspect that the ticket history for any tickets with these users as
>> requestors will error out. This has happened to me before. I can show you
>> how to fix it, but I will need some info.
>>     
> Nope, we actually have several tickets in that state, where part way through
> the display of transaction history RT croaks. This ticket displays fine, though
> it (now) has "no requestor," and I cannot find the requestor via the search
> form on the modify people page, nor the admin user search form. However the
> original requesting user exists, and can be loaded in the modify user page if
> the correct id is specified in the URL, or via Shredder's search results.
>
>   
>> First, get the UserID for each of these missing Requestors. Once we have
>> those, we will have to run a series of SQL commands to find out just who is
>> missing and what tickets are affected, including closed tickets. I hope you
>> are familiar with SQL. What Database are you using? We're on Oracle,
>> but the sequence of events should still be the same.
>>     
> It might be worth posting this Shredder recovery as a how-to to the wiki.
>
> Additional details: mysqlcheck reports no errors, and there is nothing of
> consequence in the logs. We recently upgraded from 3.8.1 to 3.8.6, and
> I did perform the database upgrades. I'm not sure if the problem existed
> before the switch, but it seems doubtful given the frequency of the activity
> (spreadsheet dumping) that lead me to uncover this.
>
> None of our local customizations seem likely candidates to be interfering
> with this, especially on such a limited basis:
>
> local/lib/RT/Transaction_Local.pm -- recognize VCF is text
> local/lib/RT/CustomFields_Local.pm -- simplified code, switch sort order
> local/lib/RT/Interface/Email/Filter/SpamAssassin.pm
> local/lib/RT/Interface/Email_Local.pm -- tag parser with Q in ticket ID
> local/lib/RT/Interface/Web_Local.pm -- long life cookies
> local/lib/RT/Shredder/Plugin/Users.pm -- search on other fields: real, name
> local/lib/RT/Shredder/Plugin/Attachments.pm -- minimum file size
>
>   
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