# How can I delete and start again?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [2015 年 7 月 28 日午後 12:50 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493 "2015-07-28T12:50:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![AstonJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/astonj/32/215041_2.png) [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [2015 年 7 月 28 日午後 12:50 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/1 "2015-07-28T12:50:38Z")

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I’ve moved to a new server and there was a miss-match in the Discourse versions (old install was saying it was up-to-date, new server install is a different version) and now I just want to delete everything and start from scratch (I have updated Discourse on the old server via git pull and taken a new backup).

I’ve tried removing the `/var/discourse` directory and installing again but all the data is still present.

How do I remove everything and start from scratch again?

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### Author: ![gerhard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gerhard/32/119479_2.png) [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [2015 年 7 月 28 日午後 12:54 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/2 "2015-07-28T12:54:05Z")

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This should delete the database and recreate the Docker container.

```
./launcher stop app
rm -r /var/discourse/shared/standalone
./launcher rebuild app

```

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### Author: ![AstonJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/astonj/32/215041_2.png) [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [2015 年 7 月 28 日午後 2:01 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/3 "2015-07-28T14:01:20Z")

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Thanks that worked 👍

But wonder why `rm- rf /var/discourse` and starting all over again didn’t work - any ideas?

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### Author: ![fantasticfears](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fantasticfears/32/119608_2.png) [@fantasticfears](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fantasticfears)
#### Post date: [2015 年 7 月 29 日午前 7:28 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/4 "2015-07-29T07:28:54Z")

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`rm -r /var/discourse/shared/standalone`  
not `rm- rf /var/discourse`

Pay attention to the position of dash.

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### Author: ![AstonJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/astonj/32/215041_2.png) [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [2015 年 7 月 29 日午後 1:00 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/5 "2015-07-29T13:00:17Z")

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That was a typo here not on the server - it would report ‘command not found’.

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### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [2018 年 10 月 26 日午前 10:54 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/7 "2018-10-26T10:54:33Z")

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### Author: ![j.jaffeux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/j.jaffeux/32/60297_2.png) [@j.jaffeux](https://meta.discourse.org/u/j.jaffeux)
#### Post date: [2018 年 10 月 26 日午後 3:39 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-delete-and-start-again/31493/8 "2018-10-26T15:39:44Z")

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