Delete Computer takes several minutes

[JPDyson]

My JSS is running fine, otherwise - inventory, policies, smart groups, etc - but the second I attempt to delete a computer, it takes several minutes to load the "are you sure" page, and then (going on half and hour now) does not seem to complete the deletion. Meanwhile, additional searches still seem to work, albeit slowly.

Anybody else experiencing this?

[8.52 on 10.6.8 server, clustered to a limited JSS]

[ghsimon]

I've seen instances where it takes upwards of 20 minutes to complete the delete. However, it does complete the action. This has only happened sporatically, and I was figuring it might have something to do with our network.

[JPDyson]

Thanks; it's not just me. At this point, the "are you sure" page loads more quickly, but the deletes themselves are still taking quite a long time. The ones from earlier did process some time over lunch.

[jarednichols]

How big is your database? Is your log retention huge?

[JPDyson]

I'll be honest, I inherited this setup and have no formal training (to be remedied next week). I'm not sure how large the database is, or how long we retain logs.

I will add that sometimes deletes just fail. Eventually, I'm returned to the inventory search results page from which I tried to trigger the delete. Searching for the item confirms it's still there.

[jarednichols]

Sounds to me like a giant database. How many clients and how long has it been operative? Let's try flushing some logs:

Go to Settings -> Flush Database Logs.

Then click "Flush Manually"

Select all the logs and then from the drop down select an "older than" value that sounds good with you. I'd start with older than 6 months, but that's just me.

Click Delete.

Depending on the size of your database, it may churn for a bit. If this alleviates your problem, you will want to go back to that Flush Database Logs area and setup some automatic culling of your logs.

[JPDyson]

Hey, Jared. I did this recently, and it churned for more than "a bit". I'm going to attempt it again on an off-peak time to see if that helps. Currently, deletes are a bit faster, but still slow.

[jarednichols · Accepted solution]

You could also start with an "older than" value that's farther back so it's deleting less logs to start with. Sort of chip away at it, you know?

[JPDyson]

That's precisely what I'm doing. The 1 year cut-off helped some, and now I'm culling it to the 6-month mark. Our DB backups were clocking in at over 2GB, which I'm told could mean an uncompressed DB size of 12+ GB.

[jarednichols]

Cool. It doesn't surprise me that a delete would be the most database intensive function as there are loads of tables and linking tables in there as well. It pretty much needs to touch every table in a delete, I imagine.