To speed up many board operations, Discus maintains a "tree" file that contains the structure of your topics and subtopics, and data about these, such as the number of posts and name of the last poster. These files are written to frequently, and are therefore susceptible to corruption in the case of a server crash while writing the file. This tab of the Data Recovery screen allows the tree index to be rebuilt from scratch. Because the primary stores of this data are the message pages themselves, rebuilding the tree file is a safe operation, and no data is lost when the tree file is rebuilt.

Possible symptoms of a corrupted tree file include:

• Wrong number of posts or pages for topics or threads shown in the user interface.

• Corrupt entries in lists of threads (e.g., a folder icon with no link, name of last poster, page count, etc.)

• Wrong name of "last poster" or "originator" on lists of threads.

• An error message in the program telling you that your tree file is corrupt.

To rebuild the tree file for your entire board, ensure that the default of "All Topics" is selected in the pulldown list box, and click the "Reindex Selected Topic" button. Advanced administrators who know that only a particular topic is corrupt can save time by reindexing only the affected topic.

Depending on the size of the board or the selected topic, reindexing may take a long time. A progress gauge is displayed during the procedure.