Last modified: 2014-09-30 07:11:51 UTC
Background: Grow tired of not being able to edit massive (41k+) watchlist by normal means (clicky-clicky or raw) (see bug #39510). Manually whittle watchlist down to 39k+ entries. Dig out https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&generator=watchlistraw&gwrlimit=max and hand-craft a list of watchlist entries to be kept after a watchlist purge. The act: go to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:EditWatchlist/clear and click the button. Watch nothing happen. Get following error message: Request: POST http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:EditWatchlist/clear, from 10.64.0.104 via cp1055 cp1055 ([10.64.32.107]:3128), Varnish XID 3575162694 Forwarded for: 84.250.106.149, 91.198.174.103, 208.80.154.134, 10.64.0.104 Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Thu, 05 Jun 2014 19:07:13 GMT
If you try it again, does it happen consistently? A /clear is supposed to be more lightweight, but still, the problem may be in the database server, because it needs to remove 41k+ rows of a large table on a single transaction, although a database server error should normally trigger the usual WSOD ("this site is experiencing technical difficulties")
(In reply to Jesús Martínez Novo (Ciencia Al Poder) from comment #1) > If you try it again, does it happen consistently? > > A /clear is supposed to be more lightweight, but still, the problem may be > in the database server, because it needs to remove 41k+ rows of a large > table on a single transaction, although a database server error should > normally trigger the usual WSOD ("this site is experiencing technical > difficulties") Yes, I've tried about five times now, about three or four hours apart.
Would it be possible to make a .js action thingy (to use on personal .js files) for the /clear page that removes, say, the first 2500 lines of the list at a time, until the bug gets a proper fix?
What exactly is the difference to bug 39510?
@Andre Klapper, #39510 is about editing the watchlist, this is about clearing it. Those are two different tools. (Three actually but it seems original reporter for #39510 didn't specify which of the editing tools was failing for them, if not both.) On a semi-related note, I'm on my way to do an experiment to see what thresholds I can get for edit tools (and possibly the clear tool) failing. I'll be back soon.
(In reply to UP from comment #3) > Would it be possible to make a .js action thingy (to use on personal .js > files) for the /clear page that removes, say, the first 2500 lines of the > list at a time, until the bug gets a proper fix? You can use this script to unwatch items of your watchlist in batch: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Ciencia_Al_Poder/unwatchapi.js Just preview that script in your personal JS. The progress is written in the browser's debug console
Sounds like we might need to break large very deletions into batches or something. Bah.
Note that /clear *does not clear, but just responds with /raw*! Jesús' workaround is one option; I have provided a pywikibot-based option in https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64074 .
...or rather, that was what I remembered from when I looked at it back then. There seems to be a button now :-)
*** Bug 68559 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I've been whittling my watchlist down (originally +39K), just broke 36K and raw editing works fine now. I'll assume the list could be emptied as well. Normal edit still fails.
