Steve Fenton

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Monday, 10th September 2012

If you install Open Web Analytics with the default settings, you may find that you very quickly run up a huge database. In 3 months I had accumulated 750mb of data and it was growing at 250mb every month. This wasn't acceptable to me, as I like to keep reports databases skinny.

The table size report listed the DomStream table as the big offender, responsible for the majority of the 750mb of data that had accumulated over time. Dom Stream tracking is a utility that tracks the user's mouse so you can see what they are doing on your site and hopefully improve your usability. It is a neat feature, but not one I'm particularly interested in.

Switching off Dom Stream tracking is a two stage process.

1. You should update the Main Configuration settings and set "Log DomStreams" to "Off".
2. You should update any tracking code, whether it is server side or client side, as this sometimes contains configuration (and it definitely does for Dom Stream tracking.

After you have switched off this feature, you may notice some records still making it into the table while various caches are cleared out, but you should notice it slowing down and eventually stopping altogether.

After clearing out this table, I was back down to a healthy 120mb.

If you really want to use the Dom Stream tracking feature, I recommend switching it on for a short period only. Not only does this make sense from a database size perspective, it also makes sense from a data analysis perspective.