# Old Ignition Server Rehab, Orphan Tag Cleanup **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Created:** [August 26, 2021, 1:56pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/old-ignition-server-rehab-orphan-tag-cleanup/50331 "2021-08-26T13:56:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![claude.hager](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/claude.hager/32/24043_2.png) [@claude.hager](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/claude.hager)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 1:56pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/old-ignition-server-rehab-orphan-tag-cleanup/50331/1 "2021-08-26T13:56:28Z")
I inherited an old Ignition server recently, and have been learning how to administer it. I’ve successfully upgraded it to v8.1.7 from 7.9 And I’ve cleaned up (deleted) a lot of obsolete devices and old tags. Currently I only have 10 connected devices, and when I look at each one with the Status, Devices, Details screens and add up the Monitored Item Count I see a total of 4,741 items (tags?). But the Status, Tags screen on the Gateway says I have a Tag Count of 29,053. I need to find out what these 29,053 tags are connected to, and to delete most of them. I have access to the default DB (Oracle in this case), and I could probably query for this with PL SQL if I knew the tables to look in. When I connect to the DB I see a LOT of different Schemas and at hundreds (a few thousand?) tables. How should I find and delete the 25,000-ish orphan tags? ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 1:58pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/old-ignition-server-rehab-orphan-tag-cleanup/50331/2 "2021-08-26T13:58:18Z")
Are you sure they are orphans? The Monitored Item count is only going to roughly match the number of _OPC_ tags you have, assuming there are no other OPC connections to other servers. All the rest can be memory, expression, folder, etc… tags that may actually be in use. ---
**Author:** ![claude.hager](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/claude.hager/32/24043_2.png) [@claude.hager](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/claude.hager)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:00pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/old-ignition-server-rehab-orphan-tag-cleanup/50331/3 "2021-08-26T14:00:29Z")
Not sure at all if they’re orphans. There are 9 projects on the server, only one of them being used and it has 6-8 vision screens on it. Pretty sure it uses nowhere near 25k tags. Being able to see them would be an excellent start, imo. ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:02pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/old-ignition-server-rehab-orphan-tag-cleanup/50331/4 "2021-08-26T14:02:40Z")
Well, it’s been discussed to death here, but we do not have any built-in tools to assist with finding unused tags right now. It’s actually a little more tricky than it seems on the surface, because references to a tag can be entirely dynamic and indirect, so it’s not like a simple search/replace is going to find every reference to a given tag with certainty. Anyway, a tag cross-reference tool is something that’s in early design phases right now, so maybe some day… ---
**Author:** ![claude.hager](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/claude.hager/32/24043_2.png) [@claude.hager](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/claude.hager)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:37pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/old-ignition-server-rehab-orphan-tag-cleanup/50331/5 "2021-08-26T14:37:54Z")
Thanks Kevin! Good to know. We’ll clean up what we can, and not worry too much about what is left.