c# script to delete very large second stage recycle bin items in sharepoint 2007
In SharePoint 2007, when item versioning is set to no limit for a document library, you could easily have a spiraling content database size. When you try delete a ginormous item, it'll eventually get stuck in the second stage recycle bin, and you'll never be able to reclaim that database space or file space - a forced purging of the recycle bins through a UI operation will time out eventually, rolling back a huge transaction, probably freezing the site for your users - cue fire and brimstone. The solution is to run the following script off-hours. Off hours helps minimize any potential blocks SQL server may issue against database pages as it goes around deleting the row content from alldocversions - from what I can tell, many I/O Page Latch locks are issued when SQL is deleting blobs, so to be nice to this script and run it off hours. Compile it into a c# console application referencing the sharepoint dll. There isn't much for progress reporting included in the script...