Command line

Preparations

Always make a complete backup of your website! That means:

  • Dump the complete database to an SQL file. This can usually be done from the command line like this:

    mysqldump [database name] -u [database user] -p --add-drop-table > ./mywebsite.sql
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  • Save all files in the webroot of your site. This can be achieved from the command line like this:
tar czf ./mywebsite.tgz [webroot directory of your site]
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It could be a good idea to run a myisamchk on your database just to make sure MySQL has everything pulled together right.

Something like this will do:

myisamchk [path_to_mysql_databases]/[database_name]/*.MYI -s -r
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Running the script

The "[base command]" is:

[typo3_site_directory]/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3
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Try this first. If it all works out you should see a help-screen. Otherwise there will be instructions about what to do.

You can use the script entirely by following the help screens. However, through this document you get some idea about the best order of events since they may affect each other.

For each of the tools in the test you can see a help screen by running:

[base command] --help [toolkey]
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Example with the tool "orphan_records":

[typo3_site_directory]/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 --help cleanup:orphanrecords
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Suggested order of clean up

The suggested order below assumes that you are interested in running all these tests. Maybe you are not! So you should check the description of each one and if there is any of the tests you wish not to run, just leave it out.

It kind of gets simpler that way since the complexity mostly is when you wish to run all tests successively in which case there is an optimal order that ensures you don't have to run the tests all over again.

  • [base command] cleanup:orphanrecords

    • As a beginning, get all orphaned records out of the system since you probably want to. Since orphan records may keep some missing relations from being detected it's a good idea to get them out immediately.

  • [base command] cleanup:deletedrecords

    • Flush deleted records. As a rule of thumb, tools that create deleted records should be run before this one so the deleted records they create are also flushed (if you like to of course).

  • [base command] cleanup:missingrelations

    • Remove missing relations at this point.
    • If you get an error like this: "TYPO3CMSCoreDatabaseReferenceIndex::setReferenceValue(): ERROR: No reference record with hash="132ddb399c0b15593f0d95a58159439f" was found!" just run the test again until no errors occur. The reason is that another fixed reference in the same record and field changed the reference index hash. Running the test again will find the new hash string which will then work for you.

  • [base command] cleanup:flexforms

    • After the "deleted" tool since we cannot clean-up deleted records and to make sure nothing unimportant is cleaned up.

Nightly reports of problems in the system

If you wish to scan your TYPO3 installations for problems with a cronjob or so, a shell script that outputs a report could look like this:

#!/bin/sh
[typo3_site_directory]/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:orphanrecords -vv --dry-run
[typo3_site_directory]/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:deletedrecords -v --dry-run
[typo3_site_directory]/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:missingrelations --update-refindex -vv --dry-run
[typo3_site_directory]/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:flexforms -vv --dry-run
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You may wish to change the verbosity level from -vv to -v as in the case above, depending on how important you consider the warnings.

The output can then be put into a logfile so the logging system can report errors.

You might also wish to disable tests like "deleted" which would report deleted records - something that might not warrant a warning, frankly speaking ...

Example script for checking your installation

#!/bin/sh
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:orphanrecords -vv --dry-run
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:deletedrecords -v --dry-run
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:missingrelations -vv --dry-run
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:flexforms -vv --dry-run
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Example script for cleaning your installation

#!/bin/sh
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:orphanrecords -vv
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:deletedrecords -v
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:missingrelations -vv --update-refindex
./typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 cleanup:flexforms -vv
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