Users got deleted without intent to delete

[Kisho1]

Hi guys! Hope you all good!

I had issues while deletion of users in the user management portal some days back. I keep deleting users which are expired. Recently when i deleted users in bulk, the valid users got deleted (nearly hundred users). I selected only expired users like how i always do whenever i delete users. I had taken screenshots of the users which i am deleting. When we received complaints from users across the organization, we cross checked with the screenshots and found that the users which were not marked to delete got deleted and those users were not expired.

When i checked the change log, it includes valid users deleted by me which were not marked to delete (which I haven't). Cisco support said it may be due to a human error. I don't think the deletion of nearly hundred valid users can be a human error. The users marked to delete were sorted according to expiry. All expired users were on the top of the list. It was very easy to select the users which were expired for deletion. All selected users (30 count per page) were expired users.

[aleabrahao]

And I agree with Meraki, it was probably human error, sometimes it happens, we think we didn't select the users and in the end they were selected.

If you still firmly believe that this is not the case, keep monitoring and contact support again.

[mloraditch]

We don't use internal users anywhere so I don't have that page active to see for sure, but most of the pages like that (including the admin page) allow you to see different qtys of items. I've not accidentally deleted admin users but I've definitely accidentally changed the filter/selection.

Its certainly possible a gui bug exists, but the only way to safely test would be to have a dummy set of users in the qtys necessary to repeatedly try to recreate it so may not be feasible for you to try to investigate

If it does happen again definitely report it to support.

[allik]

Hi Kisho,

Welcome to Meraki Community 🙂

I'm sorry to hear that a lot of users were deleted.

If you would like you can try to reproduce the issue while taking a screen recording:

1. Create a few new users with expiration date
2. Filter by that expiration date
3. Tick the boxes on the left-hand side of the newly created users
4. Click Delete

Then, check the Organization --> Change log --> Compare old values with the new values.

Did you manage to repro the issue?

• If yes --> Create a case with Meraki Support Team and attach the video recording and Organization's Change logs with the timestamps

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

[Kisho1]

I was able to reproduce the issue. I have recorded the screen with HAR capture and sent to cisco support. I have also sent the HAR file with screenshots of selected users as they asked me to do so.

[allik]

Hi Kisho,

We appreciate your time, understanding and cooperation on this matter.

The HAR file you provided is extremely valuable, together with the screen recording.

With this data, we can proceed to engage our Product Specialist Team for more in-depth investigation, and potentially recreate the issue in our lab if needed.

Please allow some time for our team to analyze the information and get back to you with the next steps.

In the meantime, if there's anything else we can assist you with here, please feel free to reach out 🙂

[Kisho1]

Cisco Meraki Support replied as below.

The internal Engineering Team did observe the HAR capture and the video shared and have come up with the following queries to scope the issue further.

1. Is the same behaviour observed in other browsers? Is the same behaviour observed in icongnito mode?
2. Were there any other dashboard windows/tabs open when you were removing the users?
3. On further checks, we observed that there were two removal actions done. The first removed the expected users but the second removal, removed more than what was expected. IS the unexpected removal always occurring on the second removal action?
4. We did observe you do a 'select all' in the first page of 30 users. at that moment, If you click to the second page do you notice any additional users getting selected inadvertently?

We are trying to understand where the issue resides and what may be causing this issue.

[Kisho1]

My reply to Meraki support for the above questions:

1. Yes

2. No

3. Not sure. You may investigate.

4. No. Only 30 users are selected.

[Kisho1]

In the 3rd point, they admitted that there's a problem.

[allik]

Hi Kisho,

Thank you for your detail response.

Please, provide the answers on the requested question in your Support case.

In addition, you can ask for a Lab Recreate and my team will try to repro the issue 🙂

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

[Kisho1]

Cisco Meraki Support Reply:

Thank you for information.

I shall be trying to reproduce the issue in a lab recreate and share the findings to our internal development team for further investigations.

I will keep you updated with our findings.

[zarkonj]

Dear Kisho

Thank you very much for this Community-Post, since something very similar happened to us last friday. In early morning, 04:51 UTC (05:51 local Time in Switzerland, when we are not working and usually asleep) over 900 Users got deleted in under 1 minute.

It is nearly impossible, that one of our administrators deleted all of them at once. Especially since it takes some time to delete users. 900 in under 1 minute feels almost to fast.

Cisco is saying the same thing to us: "human error", which we strongly disagree with.

Do you have any further information on your case? We'd be glad about any useful information that could help us solve this mistery.

Regards