Old Admin died and have no access...

[Illori]

putting in a hash like that for the password most likely will never work due to the way the hashing works.

also you should never delete users directly from the database.

[Antechinus]

He said the hash did work.

And you should be able to dump members straight from the db AFAIK. There will be some cleaning up to do afterwards, obviously, but it sounds like he's not too fussed.

If the thing has hardly ever been used, there shouldn't be much content. Might be easier to export the tables you want, install a fresh 1.1.19, then import the required data back in and leave all the crud behind. That way you'd only need to grab the details for 4 user accounts, and could drop the rest in one hit.

ETA: Come to think of it, if the place has hardly been used and was out of action for four years, more or less, why not just start a new one?

[Illori]

i dont see where he says that hashed password works, without clearing the salt i really doubt it will work.

it would be easier to create a new account and edit the db to make that user admin.

[bad5150]

hashed password worked...

[Antechinus]

Ok, just did a quick test on my local test site. If the members you want to delete have no posts or PM's, there is absolutely no problem with deleting them straight from the db. Forum maintenance section of admin was perfectly happy afterwards.

Note that I haven't tested all the possible permutations of member stuff yet (this was just a quick look around).

Since the db is probably not very large (if the forum hasn't been used much) phpMyAdmin should be able to handle any required operations without hitting timeout problems.

Suggestion:

Start by emptying the error log. It probably has a lot of accumulated crud, and you wont want to keep it.

Copy the db content to a new db, then point the forum at that. Mass delete away to your heart's content. Easiest way would be to browse the members table, order them by group (which will put the admins and mods at top) then export the rows for admins and mods only (just use the quick export, not the custom options).

Once you have the required rows exported, check the SQL file to make sure it has the content you want. If it does, drop the entire members table in one fell swoop. Then, simply import your SQL file back into the db. It will re-create the members table with only the content you want.

If forum then explodes, you know it didn't work well, and you can simply point the forum back to the original db. If forum doesn't explode, go into forum maintenance section of admin and run all the basic maintenance tasks. See what happens.

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

As you have been all concerned about answering him how to do all of that (lol you probably missed that line) and no one ever considered he asked how to IP ban someone then I link you these even if I really need to make a guide about this:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=523720.0
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=523925.0
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=301568.msg3709524#msg3709524

[Antechinus]

Install custom questions mod, if sticking with 1.1.x. That helps a lot too. Not required if going to upgrade to 2.0.x.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1516

And I can give him an .htacess file that will deal with a lot of miscreants from odd corners of the globe (mostly China and the former Soviet Union).


(and yes, I know globes don't actually have corners )

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

I actually made a guide for it --> http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=524146.0 hopefully someone of the team will approve it also because it took me more than an hour to figure out all the details xD

[Antechinus]

Good one.

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Thank you you are in it if you noticed

[Antechinus]

Man I'm like pathogenic bacteria. I'm in everything.

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Ahahahahaahah shut up you are there just to look cool you are not helpful at all you are nobody (jk)

[Antechinus]

Hey someone's gotta look cool.

[Ninja ZX-10RR]

Well I am trying to be funny in a sad situation topic