Forum Problems Installing LAMS: new error

By: Fiona Malikoff

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Graham,

This is one of those annoying errors that happens when something went wrong earlier.

When you create a LAMS2 activity in Moodle, it happens in two steps.

First you create the learning design. That is when you use LAMS authoring. That bit must have been working (although from your other posting, that is now broken to!)

Then when you complete the screen "Confirm the lesson details." and click "Start Now", a lesson is created in LAMS.

This two step process is why you can reuse the same sequence lots and lots of times.

I suspect the bit that is breaking is when you click "Start Now". When this step is done, it should write a record to the mdl_lamstwo table in the Moodle database. Could you check in that table and see if there are any rows in that table.

I think the last time someone had this error, the whole table was missing! If the table is missing, then you can either reinstall the lamstwo module in Moodle, or just create the table using the SQL statement in moodle\mod\lams\db\mysql.sql file.

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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I can't create the learning design in Moodle .....
1. I have no directory structure to choose an existing design ( even though I have reinstalled the lamstwo folder into moodle/mod. The structure exists in LAMS but is not being transferred across.
2. If I try to create a new design as soon as I try to save the design, or open an existing one, I get a system error which asks if I want to send an error report - thats probably going to the Moodle people.

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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Hmm. I'm not quite sure where to start with this - if you could get into authoring then I could get you to have a hunt around in LAMS, but if can't even get into authoring...

The error reports probably are going to the Moodle people as we don't have an autosend in LAMS.

With the directory structure, did you add any new folders or are all the folders autogenerated ones?

Can you also grab the logs again and post them here? You don't have to put them in to DEBUG mode if that would take too long - just grab the logs that are already there. The same set as before (as specified on the wiki + the Apache logs). Then I might be able to work out if the calls are even getting through to LAMS.

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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Authoring in lams seems to be OK Fiona,I can open and view sequences etc. but I'm not at all sure about the directory tree that opens ......things started to go wrong when I was in there, saving a doc, and I moved it from one level to another. LAMS seems to have corrected itself, but not moodle.

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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Have also included the notepad file of the error message generated when in moodle and I try to author

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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Graham,

Looking at the logs, it looks like the whole folder for the Moodle Test group has been removed. I don't understand how that can be, when you don't have the rights in authoring to delete it!

When you get into authoring in LAMS (from Moodle), and you click the Open button, do you see "Moodle Test" under the the "My Groups" section? (See WorkspaceDialog.jpg).

Looking in the audit log there are some entries indicating that mdl_1, mdl_2, mdl_3 and mdl_4 classes had been changed from Active to Removed. Was this something you did - I'm not sure if these entries could be something you did or something the integration did automatically. If you did, why? Usually the users won't see the extra classes - you can see them in admin but an ordinary user will only see them if they switch to LAMS proper while logged into Moodle.

Speaking of switching to LAMS proper, once you have got into authoring in LAMS, close the authoring window but don't close your browser. Then in the same browser, can you paste the server url for LAMS into the browser e.g. http://localhost:8080/lams. This should bring up the LAMS My Groups screen. What groups do you get on the screen? You should get a Moodle group. (See MyGroups.jpg)

Of course if you are using localhost as the server for LAMS, you will need to run the browser on the server running LAMS.

I think we need to either repair your database, or you need to do a reinstall of LAMS. If you do want to reinstall, go into authoring first and do an export (just the regular export, NOT the IMSLD export) of any designs you have created and want to keep.

If you want to have a go at repairing the database, can you run the attached script against the lams2 database and give me the results. I'll see if there is anything simple we can do to repair the database. I've just asked for the tables that I think have a problem - potentially there could be other problematic tables.

btw, when is this demo that you are doing?

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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Hi Fiona

When in lams from moodle I can't see any groups because as soon as I click Open I get the System Error that generates the notepad file I sent you.

I changed the status of mdl1,2,3 etc ...clutching at straws

When in LAMS the groups I see are as in attached jpg

and if you give me some brief instructions about running that script I'll give it a whirl.

My demo is Thurs or Fri and I really appreciate your help

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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Graham,

Having looked at that screendump, you now have me very worried. It looks like you are running LAMS 2.0 RC2, which was release candidate 2. That was a "prerelease" version that we made available for testing.

The most recent version is LAMS 2.0.2.

I hate to say this, but if you are running LAMS 2.0 RC2, then you need to remove LAMS and install LAMS 2.0.2 (for Windows) or LAMS 2.0 (for Unix / Linux) using the installer from the Downloads page. We are a bit behind in doing the installer for Unix/Linux.

If you want to double check which version you have, try comparing the login screen on your own server to the login screen on our demo website. The only difference that there should be between the demo website and your own site running LAMS 2.0.2 is that your own site won't have the link "You can sign up for this server here." But the version number in the top right hand corner (Version 2.0.2) and the copyright text down the bottom (Version 2.0.2 © 2002-2006 LAMS Foundation.) and the "News" section should all be the same.

Can you check which version you are running? Because if you are running the old version there isn't any point in me giving you the instructions for running the db script.
Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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Yes you are right Fiona V2.0RC2 - looks like I have some work to do tonight

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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OK....installed 2.0.2 and now have a directory in lams from moodle, but we still have a validation error and a failure to see the sequesnces.

I have attached 3 screenshots.....hope they help diagnose the problem

Posted by graham hughes

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Graham,

Have you seen Dolly's animation about LAMS & Moodle integration? Have a look to see if there's anything you might be missing.

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: graham hughes

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Yes went through it last night Ernie, can't see anything I have missed.....great tool though

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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After some fiddling (not sure what I did) I can now author in lams from moodle, but sequences in lams itself that I have loaded are not visible so I can't select them. I believe the issue is a failutre to vlidate the two servers. I still get an error on the page, despite the fact that all details match.

Another issue is that in Moodle, the lams course I created as a test appears all the way down the page (out of sight without scrolling) - but it works!!

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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I've looked at the screenshots and I can't see a problem.

Are there any errors in the logs? Either when you do verify or  when go the add activity screen (and get the problem with the sequences not showing).

I'm not sure why you are getting broken images in on the Moodle side. You are getting some (the little folders and the disk) but not the LAMS logo. If you look in the lams module is there the following files:

moodle/mod/lamstwo/treeicons/page.gif
moodle/mod/lamstwo/icon.gif

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Graham,

I think this is working, I believe the broken images in the directory structure might be due to the browser showing missing images (and of course that they can't be found )

Now are you using IE?

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: graham hughes

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IE6 Ernie and the images are in the places where Fiona suggests they should be

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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Both files are present Fiona.

I can't see why the validate button should bring up an error but it still does

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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I have the lams2 icon.gif now .....I checked its address (http://localhost/theme/chameleon/pix/mod/lamstwo/icon.gif)and had a look. There was no lamstwo folder where there was supposed to have been. So I added one and copied the icon.gif to it. Refresh and hey presto ....perhaps that's a bug in the install??

I followed all instructions for installing Moodle and my local address for lamstwo is; C:\Xampplite\moodle\moodle\mod\lamstwo

Still won't validate so there is something wrong with the server details.

I just use http://localhost and Moodle opens and the default address for lams (localhost:8080/lams) is definitely the server.

For now, I can create sequences in moodle but not in lams, well I can but they can't be picked up from moodle.

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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As for the icon - we don't write any images into any theme directories, so if Moodle is using the theme directory to source the activity icons, then it will be missing.

Any errors in the lams logs or the apache logs?

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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not much I can see ....logged on and tried the validate button again, imported a sequence into lams, and checked the logs again ...attached a couple of files where there seems to be something not right

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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and this notepad copy from the last entries in server.log and hibernalelams.log

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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All those log entries are fine. I know they are warnings but I get them all the time and it doesn't do any damage. Ditto the warnings in the boot log.

I think you are going to have to turn on debugging on the LAMS side then send me the complete collection of LAMS logs + the logs from Apache (in case there are any errors recorded on the Apache end). The wiki page is Create DEBUG Logs.

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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Here we go again. This morning I have no directory tree again ...when trying to open a sequence (in moodle). If I try to create a sequence I get 404 error.

I have changed nothing since last night when things were OK.

Ah well ...attached are te error logs you asked for and two screenshots. Good luck

Posted by graham hughes

By: Fiona Malikoff

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I can't explain the no directory tree - I can't even see a call in the LAMS logs to indicate that Moodle has asked for the data.

I've set up my local copy of LAMS to use the Chamelon theme, just in case it is the theme causing problems but apart from the missing LAMS icon I haven't spotted any different behavior due to the theme.

But, I think the URL that Moodle is using to access LAMS is wrong. I don't understand how it could have gone wrong overnight, but that's what the logs indicate.

There is an entry in your log for:

127.0.0.1 - - [29/Mar/2007:12:53:09 +1000] "GET /lams%20/LoginRequest?uid=gjhugs&method=author&ts=March+29%2C2007+12%3A52+pm&sid=......

The "lams%20" bit suggests that in your Moodle configuration screen there is a space after "lams". Could you go into the Moodle LAMS v2 module admin screen and make sure there are no spaces after the server_url, server_id or server_key fields. If there are spaces there, it will cause the validation to fail and will cause other problems.

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: Fiona Malikoff

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If you want to check what the values really are in the database try this (replacing the path with your path to mysql, and the "use moodle" statement to "use <databasename>" if Moodle uses a different database).

I did this in a cmd window. You can do the same sql statement (select name, concat('\'',value,'\'') from mdl_config where name like 'lamstwo%';) in any database client - just make sure you keep all the quotes intact.

C:\>"c:\program files\xampp\mysql\bin\mysql" -ulams2 -p
Enter password: ********
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 793
Server version: 5.0.33 Source distribution

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> use moodle;
Database changed

mysql> select name, concat('\'',value,'\'') from mdl_config
    -> where name like 'lamstwo%';
+-----------------------+------------------------------+
| name                  | concat('\'',value,'\'')      |
+-----------------------+------------------------------+
| lamstwo_requestsource | 'Moodle'                    |
| lamstwo_serverid      | 'moodle'                    |
| lamstwo_serverkey    | 'moodle'                    |
| lamstwo_serverurl    | 'http://localhost:8080/lams' |
+-----------------------+------------------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>exit

If you see any extra spaces within the quotes, then you have a problem!

Fiona

Posted by Fiona Malikoff

By: graham hughes

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Hi Fiona, just wanted to thank you for your efforts to solve my issues. In the end I went into Macquarie and met with Ernie and Anthony and we solved it all.

Seems the validation error was an IE problem - it validated fine with Firefox installed. And my issues with not seeing sequences constructed in LAMS when on moodle was a permissions problem - I was logged in to LAMS as sysadmin who did not have permission in Moodle. Simple really!

Anyway, it has been a worthwhile exercise......thanks again

Graham

Posted by graham hughes

By: graham hughes

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Definitely no spaces in any field

Posted by graham hughes

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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> I just use http://localhost and Moodle opens and the default address for lams
> (localhost:8080/lams) is definitely the server.

Are you accessing Moodle as:

http://localhost/moodle

or

http://localhost ?


If you are using http://localhost/moodle, then the call back URL you need to put in the LAMS integrated server configuration is:

http://localhost/moodle/mod/lamstwo/userinfo.php?ts=%timestamp%&un=%username%&hs=%hash%


If moodle is running as http://localhost (without the /moodle), then the URL is:

http://localhost/mod/lamstwo/userinfo.php?ts=%timestamp%&un=%username%&hs=%hash%


Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Graham,

This is a new one (just got posted about an hour ago max!) about integrating LAMS and Moodle. Goes into a great detail on the parameters and all the rest.

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione