field_deleted_date_N and field_deleted_revision_N not removed on cron run or field_purge_batch()

Question

I am running a site on D7. I noticed a no. of field_deleted_data_N and field_deleted_revision_N tables in my database. Through a lot of googling I found people saying that these tables will eventually be cleared on cron run. They also said you could run field_purge_batch().

However neither of there suggestions worked. Could somebody please help me solve this problem? Why are these fields never removed? Is there something wrong with my database? How can I remove them in a drupallish manner?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If drush doesn't help and running cron doesn't help, that might mean that the field data can't be purged because the module providing the field type has been disabled and / or uninstalled. In that case just drop the tables manually.

Answer 2

There is probably content in them. Drupal tries to play it safe and not remove fields that may result in lost data.

Use drush:

drush field-delete deleted_date_N --bundle=content_type

Other things to try that I have also found to be of varying success:

The status report sometimes gives you hints why. Reports -> Status report. This report will let you 'run cron manually' and run the 'database update script'.

The database update script triggers update functions which you can try. I have found it is still far more 'safe' than drush.

Put it in a module .install file.

function hottopicsnotify_update_7002() {
  // Clear cache first?

  field_delete_field('field_effect');

  field_purge_batch();
}

This can also be run via drush:

drush updb

I have run 'drop table' in sql with varying success - I don't recommend it. Drush field-delete is the way to go.

Answer 3

This has become quiet a nuisance for me. I modified the renameTable function schema.inc in includes/database/mysql to return FALSE rather than throw exceptions for these conditions (which is more inline with the way the rest of the schema.inc code handles [exists|!exists] situations...

 public function renameTable($table, $new_name) {
if (!$this->tableExists($table)) {
  return FALSE;
//      throw new DatabaseSchemaObjectDoesNotExistException(t("Cannot rename @table to @table_new: table @table doesn't exist.", array('@table' => $table, '@table_new' => $new_name)));
    }
    if ($this->tableExists($new_name)) {
      return FALSE;
//      throw new DatabaseSchemaObjectExistsException(t("Cannot rename @table to @table_new: table @table_new already exists.", array('@table' => $table, '@table_new' => $new_name)));
    }