Forum Problems Installing LAMS: NOTICEBOARD

Posted by Jun-Dir Liew

The fix will be released in LAMS 2.0.1, but in the meantime if anyone gets stuck on this problem i.e. they have someone using Noticeboard in Learner and they aren't using English, then there is a workaround. You can use the "Force Complete" functionality in Monitoring.

* Let the student look at the Noticeboard and click Finish (or whatever the button is called). They will get an exception.
* Then you need to go into Monitor and use the force complete option - go to the Sequence tab (Sequencia in Spanish) and find the learner that you want to fix. See the attached screenshot StuckInNoticeboard.jpg. When you put the cursor over one of the little people symbols on an activity you can see their name. "Pick up" the person symbol (with your mouse) and drag it over to the next activity in the sequence. The learner's record in the database will be updated to say that they have finished the Noticeboard.
* The learner should then either reopen the Learner window, or click Continue (Continuar). Then learner screen should take them to the next activity and they won't be stuck anymore!

This will be a pain as you will have to do it for every learner, but it just a workaround until LAMS 2.0.1 is released.

There are two other more complicated hacks that can be done, and I'll give those as separate postings. But the force complete option will always work and is the best option if you are running LAMS yourself and you don't have a lot of technical background.

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Step 1 Find the directory [jboss]\server\default\deploy\lams.ear\lams-dictionary.jar\org\lamsfoundation\lams\tool\noticeboard

Step 2 Find the file that matches to your language e.g. the Spanish file is ApplicationResources_es_ES.properties. Copy this file to somewhere else as a backup. This is VERY IMPORTANT as you will need to original version if something goes wrong.

Step 3 Edit the file in a text editor. Change the entry for "button.finish" to:

button.finish=Finish

Step 5 Save the file and restart LAMS.

Step 6 See if it fixes the problem. If it does fix it, then leave it as it is until LAMS 2.0.1 comes out.

If it doesn't fix it or if Noticeboard breaks somewhere else, then copy your BACKUP copy of the language file (the one you created in Step 2) back over the modified file and restart LAMS. Then you will be back to the original problem but at least it won't be any worse!

You have to restart LAMS whenever you change any of the language files.

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

**********************************************************************************************************
If you don't understand the instructions then DO NOT TRY IT! You try this at your own risk! You could seriously break LAMS if you get it wrong.
**********************************************************************************************************

* Shutdown LAMS / JBOSS
* Change to the directory [jboss]/server/default/deploy/lams.ear.
* Copy lams-tool-lanb11.war to somewhere else as a backup.
* Open up lams-tool-lanb11.war and find the file learnerContent.jsp.
* At around line 61, change
      <html:hidden property="method" value="Finish"/>
  To
      <input type="hidden" name="method" value="<fmt:message key="button.finish" />">
* Rezip up the lams-tool-lanb11.war so that it is an archive again (and not an expanded directory).
* Start LAMS / JBOSS and see if this fixes it.

With any luck, you should have a functional noticeboard. If you don't, you can always shutdown LAMS / JBOSS and copy the backed up lams-tool-lanb11.war to the lams.ear directory.

You must turn lams-tool-lanb11.war back into an archive, rather than leaving it expanded, or the next update that we put out to LAMS will fail when it tries to overwrite the lams-tool-lanb11.war file.

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Posted by Gregorio Rodríguez Gomez

I followed these instructions and then
I could see the Noticeboard in Learner view.
However, now I can't author and save any
new sequences with Noticeboards. When I try
saving, this is the error message I get:


Sorry, there as been an error.

There is a problem processing this request. Close the browser window and try again. If the problem persists please contact your system administrator or the technical forums on http://lamscommunity.org/.
javax.servlet.ServletException: Action[/authoring] missing resource 'Save' in key method map Hide detail
javax.servlet.ServletException: Action[/authoring] missing resource 'Save' in key method map at org.apache.struts.actions.LookupDispatchAction.getLookupMapName(LookupDispatchAction.java:240) at org.apache.struts.actions.LookupDispatchAction.getMethodName(LookupDispatchAction.java:281) at org.apache.struts.actions.LookupDispatchAction.execute(LookupDispatchAction.java:158) at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processActionPerform(RequestProcessor.java:419) at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:224) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1194) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doPost(ActionServlet.java:432) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:810) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173) at org.lamsfoundation.lams.web.filter.LocaleFilter.doFilterInternal(LocaleFilter.java:151) at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:77) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173) at org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.OpenSessionInViewFilter.doFilterInternal(OpenSessionInViewFilter.java:174) at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:77) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173) at org.lamsfoundation.lams.web.session.SystemSessionFilter.doFilter(SystemSessionFilter.java:71) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:81) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:213) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:178) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.CustomPrincipalValve.invoke(CustomPrincipalValve.java:39) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:153) at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:482) at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:482) at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccContextValve.invoke(JaccContextValve.java:59) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:126) at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:105) at org.lamsfoundation.lams.integration.security.SingleSignOn.invoke(SingleSignOn.java:121) at org.lamsfoundation.lams.integration.security.LoginRequestValve.invoke(LoginRequestValve.java:67) at org.apache.catalina.valves.FastCommonAccessLogValve.invoke(FastCommonAccessLogValve.java:481) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:107) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:148) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:856) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11Protocol.java:744) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:527) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.MasterSlaveWorkerThread.run(MasterSlaveWorkerThread.java:112) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

Cheers, Anders

Posted by Anders Berggren

Hmm, looks like this fix has "undone" the fix we did in the Language Pack. I am assuming that you have applied the language pack - is this true?

Could you have a look at the directory [jboss]\server\default\deploy\lams.ear\lams-dictionary.jar\org\lamsfoundation\lams\tool\noticeboard. Is there a file ApplicationResources_en_AU.properties in this directory?

I suggested two changes - either change the language file to have the word "Finish" or change the JSP file. Which change did you make?

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

1. No, there is no en_AU-file in that directory.
2. I changed the ApplicationResources_sv_SE.properties-file
which I assume is a language file.
There's however also an ApplicationResource_sv.properties-file

I have not tried to change the JSP-file which I assume
is a program-file. I know a little about programming but
I am not familiar with JAVA. Saving a backup original and
changing just one line doesn't seem all that risky though.

Cheers, Anders

Posted by Anders Berggren

Jan D.

Posted by Jan Dolonen

Jan D.

Posted by Jan Dolonen

Sorry for the delay in replying. Busy couple of days and I wanted to try to give you a detailed reply. This is all really confusing so I'll try to clarify matters.

With LAMS 2.0, we found two bugs relating to languages in Noticeboard.

(1) In learner: If the learner is running in something else but English, then when the user clicks the Finish button you get the error "Action[/learner] missing resource 'Finish' in key method map Hide detail". This stops the learner progressing to the next activity.

The fixes for this are outlined in the posts above. Anders, you are correct that learnerContent.jsp is a program-file. I recommend the "change the language file" fix for non-Java programmers as the opening up and later repackaging of the war file can be a bit tricky. So if you aren't used to Java, it is best to avoid that.

The ApplicationResources_sv_SE.properties is the correct file to change for Swedish. ApplicationResources_sv.properties is an old file and shouldn't even be in there! It shouldn't cause any problems by being there but I'm annoyed that we've accidently included some junk in the installer.

The ApplicationResources_no_NO.properties is the correct file for Norwegian.

If you do want to change the jsp file to fix learning problem, then the file is learnerContent.jsp and this is the root folder of lams-tool-lanb11.war. It is not in the authoring directory.



(2) In authoring: We ran into a problem in authoring which was also related to a language other than English being used. It didn't show up on a server running in English, with the user using English.

The problem is that when the author clicks Save on the Noticeboard screen (in authoring) then they get Anders' second error - "Action[/authoring] missing resource 'Save' in key method map Hide detail".

I'm not sure why you started getting this error once you had made the change to fix the learner. I'm hoping it was just co-incidence.

The fix for this is completely different. You do not need to change any jsps to fix this problem.

In the language pack we released in December, we started including ApplicationResources_en_AU.properties files. I won't go into the why but we did, but I think this fixed the Noticeboard authoring problem.



So if you
* apply the language pack available from the http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Downloads page,
* do the change for the "Finish" button in the ApplicationResources_sv_SE.properties / ApplicationResources_no_NO.properties
* restart LAMS/JBOSS

then hopefully both the authoring and learning problems will be fixed.

Installing the language pack will also fix some general issues we found when the computer running LAMS is not running in English. That is, if the operating system itself is a different language, we were getting a mixture of English and the server language on some screens. It is well worth installing the language pack if you are trying to use any language except English.



Is that any clearer?

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Posted by Anders Berggren

I'll assume you didn't change the mysql username or password for lams2, otherwise you would have mentioned it... the other reason I can think of is that the MySQL server wasn't running. It needs to be running for the language pack to install.

Posted by Jun-Dir Liew

Thanks, Anders

Posted by Anders Berggren

I hope its not a xampp thing.

Can you try going to a command line (ie do Run, cmd) and
enter the command:

C:\xampp\xampp\mysqlbin\mysql.exe -ulams2 -p

It should then prompt you for the password. Enter the password,  and press return. It should then give you a prompt like

mysql>

Does this work?

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

"Welcome to the MySQL monitor.
Commands end with ; or \g.

Your MySQL connection ID is 150 to server version: 5.0.21-community-nt
Type 'help;' or 'h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>"

Anders

Posted by Anders Berggren

It doesn't say anything is wrong with the mysql authentication, it just can't read the database. Does the directory C:\xampp\xampp\mysql\lams2 exist? Do you have any other instances of MySQL installed?

We could go back and forth trying different things to find out what the problem is, so I think the easiest thing to do at this point would be to uninstall and reinstall LAMS, then install the language pack. We'll try to test more with packages like xampp for the next language pack, as they seem quite popular...

Posted by Jun-Dir Liew

Posted by Anders Berggren

I've finally found out what is stopping the language pack running.

When you installed LAMS, did it come up with a message that it couldn't find MySQL? If so, you would have been asked to find the directory that contains MYSQL. I suspect that when the directory was selected, it appeared as "C:\xampp\xampp\mysql".

Now, when the language pack runs, it tries to call the mysql program by taking that string and appending "bin\mysql.exe". BUT then the path comes out as "C:\xampp\xampp\mysqlbin\mysql.exe" and it should be "C:\xampp\xampp\mysql\bin\mysql.exe". Note the \ between mysql and bin!

I've raised a problem report about this, and it will be fixed in the next language pack, which will be released on February 9th. So you have four choices:

(1) Wait till February 9th and the noticeboard problem requiring the language pack fix will be fixed.

(2) Download the manual language pack and install it manually (which requires copying files and running a sql script). The manual pack is available from http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Downloads

(3) Uninstall LAMS and reinstall it, but when it asks for the MySQL directory, make sure the directory path is "C:\xampp\xampp\mysql\" ie it has the trailing "\".

(4) Edit an entry in your Windows registry. If you know how to make a change in your Windows registry, then you need to find the LAMSv2 entry for "dir_mysql" and change "C:\xampp\xampp\mysql" to "C:\xampp\xampp\mysql\".

I'm not going to tell you how to change the registry - if you don't know how to modify the registry then I would suggest doing (1), (2) or (3).

I've also found where xampp puts the my.ini file. In my installation, it created it in c:\windows. However it wasn't created automatically, I had to go into the XAMPP control panel and then click the "Admin" button next to MySql. This runs WinMySQLadmin, which appears as a traffic light in the icon bar on the bottom of the screen (near the clock). I went into the my.ini take and created it that way. Then you can make the changes given on:

http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lamsdocs/Installing+MySQL+on+Windows+for+LAMS

Now to see if I can reproduce your problem starting lessons!

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Thanks a million for your continued
attention to this and for explaining
it very thoroughly. Following alternative 3
I later managed to install the lang
pack with a smile. I also changed the
my.ini-file the way that you suggested.
There were a number of radiobuttons which
I assumed referred to various sections
in the mysqld file?

Cheers, Anders

Posted by Anders Berggren

How is your installation going? Is noticeboard working?

As for the radiobuttons - I think they refer to different versions of mysql but I can't work it out, so I just leave the radio buttons set to whatever it defaulted to.

Has the reinstall fixed the problems with starting a lesson?

Regards,

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Posted by Anders Berggren

I'm starting to think that it isn't the location of the database. I have a Moodle/LAMS integration working using XAMPP on a PC, and I'm pretty sure its data files are in the same place.

You will get the "Add lesson" on the main page if you have the Monitor role for the group. You need the Author role to create a sequence and run preview but the Monitor role to run a lesson.

Can you log into LAMS as sysadmin, and then select the"Group Mgt" link. This should bring up the "Manage Groups" page. Click on your group name and then the "Manage Users" screen. This should list all the users in this group and their roles. I've attached a sample screen dump.

Could you tell me which roles your user has?

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Posted by Anders Berggren

Posted by Anders Berggren

The roles that the user gets in LAMS is indirectly based on what privileges the user has in Moodle.

By assigning all possible roles to the user in LAMS you have made sure that the problem with creating a lesson isn't a LAMS security problem and that was a very good thing to try.

I'm trying to work out what to ask you to do next.

What roles/privileges does your user have in Moodle?

My test user in Moodle has Adminstrator, Course Creator, Teacher and Student. But I think you only need Teacher and Student - I'm pretty sure I don't have Administrator rights on the http://moodle.lamscommunity.org/ website.

I do very little with Moodle, so please forgive me if I get the wrong names for things in Moodle.

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

Posted by Anders Berggren