Obliterate issues

[TelmoSilva]

I currently have a folder ($/Archives) of some very old items which I would like to delete and obliterate before we move Vault to a new server. It represents 4 GB of files which are not required.

I have painfully deleted and obliterated folder by folder (some serious tool to do this would be greatly appreciated and by looking at the numerous requests a much needed tool).

I am now down to a few items which I am unable to obliterate. The error messages can be divided into 3:

1) Unable to Obliterate item: $/Archives/SupportWeb/Support Web 4.6

All branches of an item must be obliterated before the item itself can be obliterated. It is possible that some of the branched items have been deleted, but not obliterated. You must obliterate all branches before you can obliterate this item. This item has branches at:

$/SupportWeb/Support Web 4.7

In the above case it tells me what folder is branched however I dont want to delete this specific folder but still would like to obliterate the roots. How to accomplish this?

2) An error occurred processing the request:
A database error has occured (FailDBReader)

Not sure what this is? But would also like to obliterate this folder.

3) An error occurred processing the request:
Unable to Obliterate item: $/Archives/Infinis/Infinis 2009.01
All branches of an item must be obliterated before the item itself can be obliterated. It is possible that some of the branched items have been deleted, but not obliterated. You must obliterate all branches before you can obliterate this item. This item has branches at:

It does not tell me the branches and I am not deleting things at random to find out which ones it is.


This is of high priority to us as our server move is planned in 5 days so please let me know how to obliterate properly.

Thanks,
Telmo

[Beth]

It is not possible to obliterate the root and keep the branches. The branches rely on the root for history. You would still experience some performance improvement by just performing the delete and not obliterating the root. If there are serious size issues in your database, then we might want to discuss what your size is like and how it's performing for you.

On item 2, I would need to take a little closer look at it. Could you send an email to support at sourcegear.com (attn: Beth) with a link to this forum thread?

On item 3, if you already deleted the branches that it's trying to reference for you, then they won't show in the results. You could run a history query on just the branch action to try and find which branches are tied to what you want to obliterate. This is another thing that I might be able to help more if we take it offline.