[Vtigercrm-developers] Delete records from recycle bin

[Alan Lord]

Thanks for the follow up Vincenzo,

Can we not collaborate on a project in Gitlab to get a merge request 
ready for proper testing?

As for your last comment about related fields, in the Cloud CRM they do 
clear the related fields. I just deleted an organisation that was in the 
Contact's Organisation field and the field was cleared. When I restore 
the record, the field is re-populated.

I assumed that was was all stored in the "vtiger_relatedlists_rb" table 
but even though it is referenced in CRMEntity (see unlinkDependencies 
method) it never seems to have any data in it...

Cheers

Al


On 16/07/2025 15:11, Vincenzo Bruno wrote:
> The issue with*"orphan" entities*is a significant one in*Vtiger*.
> 
> The core framework does*not*check related entities, leaving 
> them*orphaned*when deleting or*unlinking*the parent.
> 
> For example, deleting a*Project*leaves its*Project Tasks*orphaned. The 
> same applies to its*comments, documents, activities, etc.*
> 
> We implemented a*workaround*for this with a*custom handler*that catches| 
> beforedelete|and|beforeunrelate|events. If entities are related via 
> a*mandatory field*, then*delete*and*unrelate*operations are*blocked*. In 
> the previous example, the*Project*field in*Project Task*entities is 
> mandatory, so deleting a*Project*with at least*one task*is prevented.
> 
> The next step is to*enable forced deletion*by adding a*"delete on 
> cascade"*checkbox. However, we are concerned about potential*circular 
> dependencies*in custom modules or complex entity configurations.
> 
> All of this*functionality*should be added to*Vtiger's core*and should*at 
> least*work in*core modules*. Our current code is a*"quick & 
> dirty"*solution that works for us, but it needs*cleanup and 
> generalization*before being submitted as a*Merge Request (MR)*.
> 
> Moreover, there is another issue with the*Recycle Bin*when activated:
> 
>   *
> 
>     Deleting a parent entity marks it as*deleted*, but*related fields
>     are not cleared*until the Recycle Bin is emptied.
> 
>   *
> 
>     For example, in*Projects*, you still see a*link to the deleted
>     Project*in a*Task*, but clicking on it throws an error.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Il 16/07/25 11:31, Alan Lord ha scritto:
>> Anyone got any thoughts on cleaning the crmentityrel table?
>>
>> I think maybe this would be better to include in the delete code in 
>> the recycle bin model, e.g.
>>
>> "DELETE FROM vtiger_crmentityrel WHERE (module = ? AND crmid = ?) OR 
>> (relmodule = ? AND relcrmid = ?)"
>>
>> Are there any potential issues with removing rows from this table? 
>> Otherwise it is just going to keep on growing as far as I can tell...
>>
>> But then we get into the others too: seactivityrel,
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Al