How do you recover an element that was deleted? I assume you use the recycle bin exactly what items from the recycle bin need to be used and where do they go?
Thanks
Hey Jeff,
When an element is deleted, 3 items are added in the Recycle Bin
- <Date>_Delete_element_views.xml.zip
- <Date>ElementConnection before delete <element> ElementConnections.xml.zip
- <Date>_Element <elemenname>.zip
Each of these contain some part to restore the element.
The most important one is the "<Date>_Element <elemenname>.zip" this one contains the actual element. The folder structure is kept intact, so you only need to unzip the file and place the contents of the "Skyline Dataminer" folder from the zip into the "C:\Skyline DataMiner" folder on you system.
The other 2 zip-files are a bit more work.
The "<Date>_Delete_element_views.xml.zip" contains the views.xml as it was the moment the element was deleted. If you do not restore this, the element will place under the root view. If no other changes has been made to the view-structure, then you can simply replace the "C:\Skyline DataMiner\views.xml" with the one from the zip. Otherwise you will have to manually merge the two files.
The "<Date>ElementConnection before delete <element> ElementConnections.xml.zip". Contains a snapshot of the ElementConnections.xml at the time of the delete. As with the views.xml if this is not restored any ElementConnections the element had will be reset to the default or missing. If no changes happened since the Delete you can simply replace the file in "C:\Skyline DataMiner\Elements" with the one from the zip. Otherwise you will have to manually merge the 2 files.
Do note that these actions are best done when the agent is stopped to prevent conflicts. When the agent is part of a cluster you need to be extra careful with the views.xml (as this one is synchronized).
Also do note that this will only restore the element to the system, all saved data the element contained such as trending or elementData will be lost.
I was indeed not clear enough with my answer. The zip does indeed only contain the files and folders relevant to that element. What I meant with “the folder structure is intact” is the data in the zip needs to end up in the same place on your system. The zipSkyline DataminerElements\… Needs to end up in C:Skyline DataMinerElements….
So yes, you just need to make sure that the contents of the Elements folder from the zip ends up in the Elements folder of the system.
Hi Brent,
I am facing a similar issue in a cluster of 4 failover pairs. Assuming the DMA IDs are 1,2,3,4 the element has DMA ID 4 but after it was deleted, the associated files are present in Recycle Bin of DMA 2. So should I restore the element to DMA 4 or 2 ?
Also, I see 2 of these zip files. Can you please tell me which one I need to use ?
Finally, is it better to stop all 8 DMAs and then carry out the above procedure ? Thank you 🙂
Hey Arunkrishna,
The only reason I can think of that an element with DMAID 4 would be present in the DMAID 2 is that the element was orignally created on 4 but moved to 2 during its lifetime. It should not matter much where you restore it but I would advice to be safe and restore it on the DMA where it was present in the recycle bin.
Regarding the 2 zips. It is a bit hard to tell which to use as I have no idea what concrete data is present in the zips and which of that data is desired by you to be restored. As stated in my answer, these zips contains the ElementConncetion.xml, which is responsible for keeping track of the elementconnections. To restore this you have to merge it (not replace) with the file already present on the system. So the safe thing to do would be to look at the data in both files and cherry-pick the data that is needed.
Finally, Since some of these files are synchronized across the cluster I think it is safer to stop all agents.
Thanks a lot Brent. The DMA only has the default ElementConnection.xml file; so I am not restoring this file alone. The other 2 I will restore! 🙂
Brent, Thanks for the quick response but I have additional question.
1) Your statement of :
“The folder structure is kept intact, so you only need to unzip the file and place the contents of the “Skyline Dataminer” folder from the zip into the “C:Skyline DataMiner” folder on you system
does not appear to be correct or I am misunderstanding it . The contents of the “Skyline DataMiner” folder is NOT “intact” as you stated. The Elements folder in that folder ONLY contains the folder for the element that was deleted and not the entire (“intact”) structure so as you stated. I assume that you meant to say to Copy the contents of the “Elements” folder from the zip file to the Elements folder on the actual system, is that correct?
Thanks