This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:

This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:
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Title : RT (Request Tracker) - find and delete big attachments
Author : Remy van Elst
Date : 17-01-2013
URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/RT_find__and_delete_big_attachments.html
Format : Markdown/HTML
---

RT (Request Tracker) can save attachments. It saves these in the database
(mysql). I had an issue where my mysqldump used in backupping RT would fail due
to an `mysqldump: Error 2020: Got packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes
when dumping table Attachments at row: xxxxx` error. Adding the
`--max_allowed_packet=500M` parameter to the mysqldump command didn't work, so
here is how to search and find big attachments in RT using mysql. This is tested
on RT 4.0.8, but the RT install has been running and updated since RT 3.

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### Connect to MySQL

If you have your database on the same box as RT, connect using the following
command, where you replace `rt_db_u` with the RT MySQL username:

mysql -u rt_db_u -p

It will now ask for the RT MySQL password, which you can find in the RT
`SiteConfig.pm` file. Enter it and press ENTER.

If you have your MySQL running on a dedicated database server, connect to it
remotely via the following command, again replacing `rt_db_u` with your database
name and `database_blade_043` with your database servers hostname/IP:

mysql -u rt_db_u -h database_blade_034 -p

### Select the RT database

Select the RT database with the following MySQL command, replacing `rt_db` with
the name of your RT MySQL database:

mysql> use rt

### Finding the big attachments

mysql> SELECT DISTINCT Transactions.ObjectId,Attachments.Subject FROM Attachments LEFT OUTER JOIN Transactions ON Transactions.Id = Attachments.TransactionId WHERE Transactions.ObjectType = 'RT::Ticket' AND LENGTH(Attachments.Content) > 4000000;

This command will display all the ticket ID's and Subjects from items where the
attachment size is more than 4 MB (4194304 Bytes). The outer join is because
[ticket ID's are[1]][2] [not Attachments ID's[2].][3] It might take a while, the
query took about 4 minutes on my DB.

This was my result:

+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| ObjectId | Subject |
+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1291 | |
| 1546 | |
| 1562 | [filename] |
| 2016 | |
| [...] | [...] |
| 85579 | [filename] |
+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
6878 rows in set (1.89 sec)

If you get the following error:

ERROR 2020 (HY000): Got packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes

Reconnect to the MySQL database with the following parameter added to the
command:

--max_allowed_packet=500M

[More info][4]

Now you can go to those tickets, and remove the attachments.

If you don't want to get blank Subjects, you can execute the following query:

mysql> SELECT DISTINCT Transactions.ObjectId,Attachments.Subject FROM Attachments LEFT OUTER JOIN Transactions ON Transactions.Id = Attachments.TransactionId WHERE Transactions.ObjectType = 'RT::Ticket' AND LENGTH(Attachments.Content) > 4000000 AND Attachments.Subject != "";

### Notes

Do note that this is also possible via the Shredder, using the Attachments
filter.

[1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212
[2]: http://lists.bestpractical.com/pipermail/rt-users/2013-January/078909.html
[3]: http://lists.bestpractical.com/pipermail/rt-users/2007-June/046395.html
[4]: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/packet-too-large.html

---

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