Idea

johntube
started a topic on Tue, 13 January 2015 at 4:52 PM

This is different from wiping user data only ! The feature should be available to the user itself (delete its account) and to the admin, especially for dummy/test users.

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21 Comments
rynosce said on Mon, 26 January 2015 at 7:04 AM

I also like

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luizcarlosfx said on Tue, 03 February 2015 at 6:14 AM

I agree. I am facing with lots of dummy users I can't delete. This must be implemented.

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coffeeod said on Wed, 04 February 2015 at 7:11 AM

Agree, we are facing same problem as our product is close being showcased to potential clients. We should have way to clear dummy users and their data (example leaderboards) and users all together since client will have access to all game related accounts for testing in-game control panel.

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josephferano said on Thu, 05 February 2015 at 9:22 AM

Yes, I would see this as really helpful. I have some test accounts as well.

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Varun said on Tue, 05 May 2015 at 9:00 AM

I agree. This would be very helpful during the development phase. Any updates on of the DevTeam is even looking into implementing this feature?

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Brendan Vanous said on Tue, 05 May 2015 at 10:06 AM

Hi all,

Yes, we're looking at having a distinct "sandbox" environment, in which it will be safe to delete users (as well as titles), for testing purposes. We don't have a date for this yet, but we're aware of the need. Having a good view on the number of developers who have this need is definitely valuable to use, so we appreciate you guys taking the time to let us know.

For right now, I would recommend creating test accounts using the "+" mechanism supported by most mail services - so for example:

foo+test001@gmail.com

foo+test002@gmail.com

That allows you to keep creating accounts which really use the same email address in practical use, so that you can test with new accounts without having to make a new email account on your side.

As soon as we have more info on the "sandbox", we'll update this thread.

Brendan

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Freerangegames said on Tue, 05 May 2015 at 10:43 AM

+1
Deleting user from admin api and game manager should exist.

Brendan, why are you focusing on sandbox? It's data for our game, why wouldn't we be able to delete users on production also? You can make it secure and safe however you want if you're worried about that.

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Brendan Vanous said on Tue, 05 May 2015 at 10:59 AM

The concern is specifically about potential impact to real user accounts in live titles, particularly given the fact that the "owner" of a title (the publisher or developer) may not be the only one with access to the title (contractors working on a game, etc.). Due to the risk, this was seen as something which should be isolated to a testing environment. However, there's been sufficient feedback on this feature that we'll be re-opening the discussion internally.

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Freerangegames said on Wed, 06 May 2015 at 8:08 AM

I see. Having an option to protect player accounts like that might be useful, but from my point of view you should prioritize flexibility and tools for simple devs first, then later adding optional features that offer protection of game data on more complex level. That level of protection could be an option on game configuration itself.

Also since /Admin/ResetUser seems to wipe all the data except the actual account existence, it is rather inconsistent at this point to have one and not the other.

I hope you guys go the simpler route and implement deleting users. Thanks for your time Brendan.

Kova

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Brendan Vanous said on Wed, 06 May 2015 at 12:58 PM

The way the service was originally designed, all titles used the same account space for users. In part, this was a convenience for players - once they had created an account, they could sign into any game using PlayFab without having to make up yet another password, for instance. Because of that, deleting a user would effectively delete the user for all titles, regardless of the developer/publisher - while we could remove the User/Title specific data, the account would still be there. Even now, new titles are using a default Publisher ID until they get set up with a unique one - this is something we'll be changing soon. Once we have that in place, we'll work back through the existing titles, to give them separate user spaces (Publisher IDs). Well be proceeding with great caution on that, as we don't take on changes to live titles lightly - they require significant review and test. Once that is done, we'll be clear to provide account deletion.

Now originally, we were thinking that account deletion would then be something we would add as part of a sandbox environment, to protect live titles. But you are correct that flexibility should take priority, so I'll update our internal work item on this to make this a production task.

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Contact said on Fri, 12 June 2015 at 4:53 AM

+1

Would be nice to be able to remove all the players I created when testing the "logging/create account" part

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Brendan Vanous said on Tue, 25 August 2015 at 4:00 PM

Thanks to everyone for your input on this one - user account deletion is now enabled for titles in test:

https://api.playfab.com/Documentation/Admin/method/DeleteUsers

As always, please let us know if you encounter any issues.

Thanks,

Brendan

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johntube said on Tue, 25 August 2015 at 4:01 PM

People like to see democracy in action.

Keep it up PlayFab !

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Freerangegames said on Tue, 25 August 2015 at 4:19 PM

Thank you!

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Varun said on Wed, 26 August 2015 at 6:57 AM

Great to finally have this feature! Would be even more convenient if we could delete users directly from the dashboard / game manager too.

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romkij said on Fri, 28 August 2015 at 2:46 AM

When I post request, account are not removed. But response status OK and code 200. What could be the reason?

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Brendan Vanous said on Fri, 28 August 2015 at 9:19 AM

Could you provide the PlayFab ID and Title ID in question? If the issue is that the account still appears in the Players tab in the Game Manager, that is due to the fact that the data for that list is returned from a Redshift query, and the data will not have updated to remove that entry yet. However, if you search on the player profile, you should find that it is gone.

Brendan

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romkij said on Fri, 28 August 2015 at 9:41 AM

Game Title ID : C47

PlayFab IDs:

633A12859A9EE5FC

8F7E5C67AFF9B024

C3F574D73E3A4D4

AD864D48C6400322

69DBC35AADC5C037

707A5DC7D156DF4E

3C58CDF01224DD60

EF1CA3EC12DF76C7

D564187D171728C0

144020C0871B617D

D3050FC298E28A6D

4A394E1F81AF3B92

F306C2248E6E646A

76D2D444A54EDDEA

6DC8849FEA467071

F2A83D52829EC9F4

96965E40CD8522C5

CEE20B439B44C60D

All of this ids can not be removed.

Thank you for support!

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Brendan Vanous said on Fri, 28 August 2015 at 11:01 AM

Ah, I see the confusion. When a player account is deleted, you'll still be able to search on the PlayFab ID, but the user has been completely removed - username, email, display name, any linked account, data, stats, etc.

In other words, anything which made this the player is now gone. You will not be able to sign into this account via any of the Login... API calls, and you can use whatever authentication mechanism (username/password, Facebook token, etc.) used previously to create a new account. The empty record of the PlayFab ID needs to remain behind, due to database dependencies, but there is nothing related to the user account remaining apart from that ID.

Brendan

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romkij said on Fri, 28 August 2015 at 11:10 AM

It is a pity that there is no way to remove these dependencies too.

Thank you!

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Brendan Vanous said on Fri, 28 August 2015 at 4:06 PM

Why is that, exactly? Given the range of possible PlayFab IDs, you're not in danger of running out. If anything, this allows you to maintain tracking information on accounts used for test without any risk of a collision with a subsequent PlayFab ID (though the odds of a matching one being created are pretty astronomical, granted).

Brendan

Hi Brendan,
Good day!! As you mentioned in this blog that the user account deletion is now enabled for titles in test:
https://api.playfab.com/Documentation/Admin/method/DeleteUsers

So I have been trying to find where my game title has been setup in test mode but still couldn't find after searching for some times..

I've changed one of the account users to have the Admin permission in order to use the DeleteUsers API. However, it seems that the PlayFab in Unity SDK only has PlayFabClientAPI but NOT APIs for the Servers / Admin. Hence, I just wonder if the DeleteUsers API require another PlayFab SDK to be installed for this purpose? Many Thanks, Peter

Hi Peter,

You can find the DeleteUsers call in the PlayFabCombinedTestingSample and PlayFabServerSample directories of the Unity SDK. Alternately, you can call it directly using Postman, and we've posted a complete Postman Collection in GitHub here, to make this easy: https://github.com/PlayFab/PostmanCollection

Thank you Brendan,
That's great!!! Very much appreciated for your help :-)