Unable to delete user data

[beedaddy]

When I click on a user and try to delete its user data ("DSGVO-konform"), it jumps back to the user list. But going back to the user, all files are still present and nothing has been deleted.

Browsers: I tried it with Firefox and with Vivaldi (Chromium-based)
Synapse-Admin: Version 0.8.5
Synapse: Version: Version 1.54.0

[dklimpel]

IMO this ist not a bug. See there: https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/admin_api/user_admin_api.html#deactivate-account

[beedaddy]

Ah, thanks for the clarification. So it's not possible to delete all local files, the user has uploaded, at once (delete file by file seems to work)?

[dklimpel]

https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/admin_api/user_admin_api.html#delete-media-uploaded-by-a-user

[beedaddy]

Well, I mean using synapse-admin.

[natecovington]

Ideally I'd like a checkbox next to the user so I can clear their media all in one shot.

Either that or a setting in Element for the room history so I can put it on auto-pilot:

In my case what's happening is I have ONE very active user in ONE telegram channel that's puppeted into my server. So I have plenty of room for everything else - it's just this one room, one user's media...

[HammyHavoc]

So can we still not delete all the media for a specific user via Synapse Admin? If not, that's disappointing to say the least, seems like an obvious feature.

[natecovington]

It's not so obvious because they're not "just media" - when a Matrix server processes an attachment, there is actually a "message" that gets sent along with the file, so there is an entry in the postgres database, etc. It's not as easy to unwind as it seems. Particularly when you've got messages on multiple homeservers, am I supposed to delete the files when you delete them from your homeserver, etc?

For my solution, I moved the Matrix homeserver out of an expensive "cloud VPS" and now I'm running it on a cheap IBM m900, it has a 1TB SSD for storage and runs out of my home office. It requires a $5/month cloud VPS to use as a reverse proxy

[HammyHavoc]

I also run Synapse locally on a server, but it looks like a bridge has been malfunctioning for whatever reason, and I now have absolutely hundreds of GBs of media files that need removing from my cache pool. Throwing more storage at it isn't a solution.

If a single media item can be deleted, why can't multiple?

[natecovington]

Maybe this will help, it's possible if you have root access to the server:
https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/develop/docs/admin_api/media_admin_api.md#quarantining-all-media-of-a-user

[awesome-manuel]

What about the "media" tab in the user details view?