# Will tombstones be frequently repaired after being compressed?

**URL:** <https://forum.scylladb.com/t/will-tombstones-be-frequently-repaired-after-being-compressed/4755>\
**Category:** ScyllaDB\
**Tags:** alternator, administration, compaction, tombstone\
**Created:** [April 23, 2025, 3:35am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/will-tombstones-be-frequently-repaired-after-being-compressed/4755 "2025-04-23T03:35:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bo\_li](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/bo_li/32/438_2.png) [@bo\_li](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/bo_li)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 3:35am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/will-tombstones-be-frequently-repaired-after-being-compressed/4755/1 "2025-04-23T03:35:42Z")

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_Installation details_  
#ScyllaDB version: 5.2.18  
#Cluster size: 35  
#os (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu/AWS AMI): centos

I have a 35 node 5 replica cluster and the traffic pattern involves a lot of writes and deletes through alternator. When there are a large number of tombstones in the cluster, cluster regular\_compaction cannot clean up the tombstones in time. So I executed nodetool compact on each node one by one to clean up the tombstones. During this time, repair is still being executed. I found that the capacity of the node dropped to 15% after major\_compact was executed, but after 5 days the capacity recovered to about 45%.

After dumping some sstbale, I found that a large number of tombstones that were originally cleared existed again. I suspect that after my A node executed major\_compaction, other nodes have not yet executed it. At this time, repair repaired the tombstone. This cycle continues and the tombstone cannot be cleared away.

Do you have any suggestions? Should I stop repair first and then perform compaction on each node again?

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**Author:** ![bo\_li](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/bo_li/32/438_2.png) [@bo\_li](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/bo_li)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 8:12am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/will-tombstones-be-frequently-repaired-after-being-compressed/4755/2 "2025-04-23T08:12:57Z")

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hi @denesb , do you have any suggestions? thanks.

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**Author:** ![Patrick\_Bossman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/patrick_bossman/32/388_2.png) [@Patrick\_Bossman](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Patrick_Bossman)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/will-tombstones-be-frequently-repaired-after-being-compressed/4755/3 "2025-07-16T13:50:04Z")

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Hello,  
You can suppress repair from re-distributing expired tombstones by changing [enable\_tombstone\_gc\_for\_streaming\_and\_repair.](https://docs.scylladb.com/manual/stable/reference/configuration-parameters.html#confval-enable_tombstone_gc_for_streaming_and_repair)

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**Author:** ![Patrick\_Bossman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/patrick_bossman/32/388_2.png) [@Patrick\_Bossman](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Patrick_Bossman)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 1:54pm UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/will-tombstones-be-frequently-repaired-after-being-compressed/4755/4 "2025-07-16T13:54:02Z")

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I should add, if the parameter is not (yet) available to you, then you would need to finish major on all nodes before running repair to ensure the tombstones are cleared on all nodes and do not get redistributed.