Issue "plesk repair all -y" deleted data folder of subscription...

[Pan_Duke]

Ok this was terrifying ..
i log to plesk and try to change a subdomain of example.com for SSL. i tick the SSL selection and select the correct certificate from the drop down.
click apply and plesk hungs
try it for some times. same thing
try to delete the subdomain. plesk hungs.
click home then again to the subscription and the subdomain has switched to "no website"
i delete again. plesk hungs.
back and in again ... the subdomain is deleted
some thing when i try to create it again
so i decide to go ssh and run "plesk repair all -y"
the process goes on till it hungs on another subscription cause some pictures had no unicode chars (thats normal i googled it)
Then suddenly i realize /var/www/vhosts/example.com DOES NOT EXIST!
it was deleted!
repair does not say anything just:
Checking system users

The system user '***********' is orphaned in Plesk ................. [WARNING]
Removing the system user '***********' ........................... [FIXED]

The system user '***********'' is orphaned in Plesk .................. [WARNING]
Removing the system user '***********' ............................ [FIXED]

The system user 'guest' is orphaned in Plesk ...................... [WARNING]
Removing the system user 'guest' ................................ [FIXED]

these all where users of example.com

1. is this expected? i am terrified! i can't trust simple processes anymore
2. why such thing has happened? where should i look for clues?
3. how can i restore back to normal?
i followed every plesk support article. every solution hungs
/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/httpdmng --reconfigure-domain example.com HUNGS
/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/httpdmng --reconfigure-all. HUNGS
/usr/local/psa/bin/repair --update-vhosts-structure HUNGS

any help ideas would be highly appreciated

thank you in advance

 

[Pan_Duke]

ok so i managed to solve the Hunging problems.
it appears that fail2ban was causing all the damage as described in this article
Fail2ban service gets stuck and unable to remove subscription with 504 Gateway Timeout error

after uninstalling fail2ban everything works fine. when reinstalling it though, it doesn't start. i am looking into this one as well

Still, this does not explain how and why the folder of a whole domain was deleted.
am i missing something?

 

[MarkM]

You sure the subdomain wasn't mapped to the main directory?

 

[websavers]

We just had this exact same thing happen where running a plesk repair *removed* the entirety of a subscription's file system. It happened for 6 subscriptions and it was *also* after Plesk repair found orphaned system users which we let it repair.

Never before has plesk repair removed files on us. We've *always* found it to be reliable in the past, but this is definitely shaking our confidence in the utility. Has this not been looked in to? It seems like a *very* serious problem.

@IgorG (I don't like to tag people unnecessarily, but it seems like a bug in plesk repair that deletes files unexpectedly and which has been around for about a year and which has been narrowed to a particular part of the repair function should have attention drawn to it for a code walkthrough)

- ‪CentOS 6.10 (Final)‬
- Plesk Onyx Version 17.8.11 Update #42, last updated on Mar 3, 2019 04:10 AM

 

[IgorG]

@websavers I'd suggest you submit a detailed report here Reports
But on the other hand, I believe that it would be much more effective to investigate this strange case directly on your server. And for this, it would be better to contact Plesk support.

 

[websavers]

Thanks for the reply @IgorG -- the problem is that we can't reproduce it. It seems to happen at random and this was only our second occurrence of it in many years. Since the data was already removed, I can't see how access to the server would be helpful, but I've created a support request with the hope that maybe they can use logs on the machine to figure it out.

 

[Hex]

I don't want to be in your position, The idea of thinking about this is scary especially without a backup routine
I suggest you to use -n flag to simulate the result. that's going to be my way from now on.

 

[Pan_Duke]

I am about to start another (and last one i believe) update from 12.5 to 17.**.
and ..... It did it again! Orphaned user

Checking system users

The system user 'somedomain_user' is orphaned in Plesk .............. [WARNING]
Removing the system user 'somedomain_user' ........................ [FIXED]

and it removed all vhosts folder for the domain.
This is unacceptable for me. There is no warning that files are going to be deleted. Just a warning for orphaned user. This is terror.
I got my backups an all but still i am terrified. I am downloading 65GBs on server storage and praying ... .
Meanwhile it is the third time that i am counting domain folders in the ftp client comparing manually with plesk Subscriptions list.
It is like living in the stone age...
This is not the way things should be.
i am furious!!

 

[IgorG]

@Pan_Duke Obviously, there is some serious inconsistency in the Plesk database. This leads to such results. I would strongly recommend that you contact Plesk support. The problem is serious and requires detailed research directly on your server. This is not a topic that can be solved in the forum discussion, trust me.