title: delete documents from solr index - index is not touched
body: <p>I'm trying to understand why my Solr index is not even touched when I delete my whole index!</p>
  
  <p>So far I've tried a query directly to solr:</p>
  
  <pre><code>curl 'http://localhost:8080/solr/update?stream.body=&lt;delete&gt;&lt;query&gt;*:*&lt;/query&gt;&lt;/delete&gt;&amp;commit=true'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've also tried pysolr:</p>
  
  <pre><code>In [242]: from pysolr import Solr
  
  In [243]: conn = Solr('http://localhost:8080/solr/')
  
  In [244]: conn.delete(q='*:*')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The output of these two above commands is the same in catalina log.</p>
  
  <p>No matter how I try this (even tried from the admin panel), the index still shows same number of docs:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Num Docs:
  323
  Max Doc:
  323
  Version:
  52
  Segment Count:
  1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>At first I thought it was a permission issue of my solr/data folder,  but it was not. 
  I commented out my cache in my solrconfig.xml, result was the same.</p>
  
  <p>It would be great if anyone has any tips!</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>Later edit:</p>
  
  <p>Everytime I run the above commands, only the files that have a later timestamp are modified (only from spellchecker dir) - you can also see that the user ownership is changed from www-data to root - when I manually run those commands</p>
  
  <pre><code>data/index:
  total 2112
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root 1268535 2012-08-10 13:41 _f.fdt
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root    2618 2012-08-10 13:41 _f.fdx
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root    1135 2012-08-10 13:41 _f.fnm
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root  201513 2012-08-10 13:41 _f_Lucene40_0.frq
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root  207400 2012-08-10 13:41 _f_Lucene40_0.prx
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root  419705 2012-08-10 13:41 _f_Lucene40_0.tim
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root   11199 2012-08-10 13:41 _f_Lucene40_0.tip
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root     245 2012-08-10 13:41 _f_nrm.cfe
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root    2751 2012-08-10 13:41 _f_nrm.cfs
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root     382 2012-08-10 13:41 _f.si
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root      20 2012-08-10 13:41 segments.gen
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root      98 2012-08-10 13:41 segments_h
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       0 2012-08-10 13:55 write.lock
  
  data/spellchecker:
  total 792
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 129251 2012-08-10 14:16 _q.fdt
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  84282 2012-08-10 14:16 _q.fdx
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1119 2012-08-10 14:16 _q.fnm
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 288855 2012-08-10 14:16 _q_Lucene40_0.frq
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 257208 2012-08-10 14:16 _q_Lucene40_0.tim
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   9355 2012-08-10 14:16 _q_Lucene40_0.tip
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root    306 2012-08-10 14:16 _q.si
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     69 2012-08-10 14:16 segments_1p
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     20 2012-08-10 14:16 segments.gen
  
  data/tlog:
  total 444
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root 363169 2012-08-10 12:11 tlog.0000000000000000019
  -rw-r--r-- 1 www-data root  79280 2012-08-10 12:11 tlog.0000000000000000020
  </code></pre>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>Catalina log truncated, conn.delete(q='<em>:</em>') ran - here is what is logged in catalina.log</p>
  
  <pre><code>Aug 10, 2012 3:17:57 PM org.apache.solr.update.DirectUpdateHandler2 commit
  INFO: start commit{flags=0,version=0,optimize=false,openSearcher=true,waitSearcher=true,expungeDeletes=false,softCommit=false}
  Aug 10, 2012 3:17:57 PM org.apache.solr.search.SolrIndexSearcher &lt;init&gt;
  INFO: Opening Searcher@1d4eeb5 main
  Aug 10, 2012 3:17:57 PM org.apache.solr.core.QuerySenderListener newSearcher
  INFO: QuerySenderListener sending requests to Searcher@1d4eeb5 main{StandardDirectoryReader(segments_h:52 _f(4.0):C323)}
  Aug 10, 2012 3:17:57 PM org.apache.solr.core.QuerySenderListener newSearcher
  INFO: QuerySenderListener done.
  Aug 10, 2012 3:17:57 PM org.apache.solr.handler.component.SpellCheckComponent$SpellCheckerListener buildSpellIndex
  INFO: Building spell index for spell checker: default
  Aug 10, 2012 3:17:57 PM org.apache.solr.update.DirectUpdateHandler2 commit
  INFO: end_commit_flush
  Aug 10, 2012 3:18:02 PM org.apache.solr.core.SolrCore registerSearcher
  INFO: [collection1] Registered new searcher Searcher@1d4eeb5 main{StandardDirectoryReader(segments_h:52 _f(4.0):C323)}
  Aug 10, 2012 3:18:02 PM org.apache.solr.update.processor.LogUpdateProcessor finish
  INFO: [collection1] webapp=/solr path=/update/ params={commit=true} {deleteByQuery=*:*,commit=} 0 5608
  </code></pre>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>later later edit:</p>
  
  <p>I tried to delete by id and it works! So for some reason deleting by</p>
  
  <pre><code>q=*:*
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>fails ...</p>