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 Mary Carbonara (MaryCarbonara) Principal Knowledge Management Specialist
Pegasystems Inc.
US
MaryCarbonara Member since 2010 216 posts
Posted: May 16, 2022
Last activity: Sep 6, 2023
Posted: 16 May 2022 12:48 EDT
Last activity: 6 Sep 2023 10:35 EDT

Do not modify or truncate critical System tables

Applies to Pega Platform versions 7.2 through 8.7

Symptoms

Reported symptoms include the following problems and similar symptoms that result in production systems becoming corrupt and, therefore, unavailable:

  • Log in fails after critical pr_sys_app tables are truncated.
  • Production system not available after pr_sys_app tables are truncated.

Users report the problem after having truncated database tables, including two critical System application  tables, while some node in the cluster is still running:

  • pr_sys_app_ruleset_index
  • pr_sys_app_hierarchy_flat

Errors

Login fails

Portals are not available for several hours

Production system not available

Explanation

Root cause analysis of the reported problems finds that two critical System tables were tampered with. Usually, the System tables have been truncated:

pr_sys_app_ruleset_index

pr_sys_app_hierarchy_flat
 

Why the tables, pr_sys_app_ruleset_index and pr_sys_app_hierarchy_flat, are important

The System tables, pr_sys_app_ruleset_index and pr_sys_app_hierarchy_flat, are crucial to the runtime features for Application-based filtering of reports and for Application-Based Assembly (ABA) rule assembly cache. These tables must be accurate for the system to operate correctly.  During each session authorization, the system ensures that these tables are correct for that user’s ruleset list and application tree.

Why you must not touch the tables, pr_sys_app_ruleset_index and pr_sys_app_hierarchy_flat

Human intervention is the leading cause of problems with these tables. If any node is running while the tables are manually truncated, then that node will continue to write rows.  As the system reads and writes rows to those tables (while the manual second step truncation is going on), it causes the tables to become corrupt. This will cause much greater harm to your system than any other problem you may be trying to diagnose.

Solution

Do not truncate or tamper with these two critical System tables:

pr_sys_app_ruleset_index

pr_sys_app_hierarchy_flat

If you truncate or touch these tables, your Pega deployment will be corrupt and lead to a Sev-1 (Production Down) scenario.

If this happens, go to My Support Portal and submit a New Request for the issue that you are having. See My Support Portal FAQs.

Related Content

Preassembling rules in an application

Rules management

This Support Document has been migrated from Pega Documentation:
https://docs.pega.com/pega-services-troubleshooting/do-not-modify-or-truncate-critical-system-tables
12Sept2022 Solution revised to address FDBK-86648
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Pega Platform 8.7
Pega Platform
Pega Platform
System Administration
Troubleshooting

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  • Reply
  • Brendan Horan Srinivas Bharat Komarina Vamshi Kulkarni Ali Ashroff
Posted: 2 years ago
Posted: 5 Jun 2022 4:38 EDT
Vamshi Kulkarni (VKKulkarni)
Centene Corp
Senior Application Software Engineer
Centene Corp
US

@MaryCarbonara Need help to understand what are next steps if these tables are mistakenly truncated (even though it is not suggested).

Article says it will corrupt and lead sev-1, but no steps provided how to resolve the Sev-1.

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Posted: 2 years ago
Updated: 2 years ago
Posted: 6 Jun 2022 9:39 EDT
Updated: 6 Jun 2022 14:05 EDT
Mary Carbonara (MaryCarbonara) Principal Knowledge Management Specialist
Pegasystems Inc.
US

@VKKulkarni  Contact your support team for assistance. GCS collaborates with Product Engineering for scenarios related to this Support Document. Thanks for your good question.

Your support team will help you move to Pega Cloud, where all of this is taken care of for you.

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Posted: 1 year ago
Posted: 5 Sep 2023 18:10 EDT
Rich Catlett (RichC521)
Express Scripts
Principle Engineer
Express Scripts
US

@MaryCarbonara These tables are in the list of tables to clear when clearing the cache. This list of tables has come from Pega. Reading through the details above, it appears that the issue is when this is done while the system is up and running. Can you clarify on this topic? Can/should we keep them in the list of tables that we clear when clearing the cache and just make sure that we only clear them when the system is down, or should we completely remove them from the list of table to clear when clearing the cache?

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Posted: 1 year ago
Posted: 6 Sep 2023 10:35 EDT
Rich Catlett (RichC521)
Express Scripts
Principle Engineer
Express Scripts
US

@RichC521

 

data.pr_sys_statusnodes data.pr_data_stream_nodes; data.pr_data_stream_node_updates; data.pr_data_stream_sessions;

rules.pr_sys_class_ancestors; rules.pr_assembledclasses; rules.pr4_rule_sysgen; rules.pr_sys_appcache_entry; rules.pr_sys_appcache_dep; rules.pr_sys_appcache_shortcut; rules.pr_sys_cache_dep; rules.pr_sys_cache_entry; rules.pr_sys_cache_impl;

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