Site news problems / priviledges with Moodle 1.9.2 (Build 20080711)

Re: Site news problems / priviledges with Moodle 1.9.2 (Build 20080711)

by Cliff Cassell -
Number of replies: 1

Hi

I upgraded my Moodle 1.6 -> 1.8 -> 1.9.1+ as the guides mentioned and everything seemed to work really well.

Term is about to start and disaster struck. It seems that all the users that were once students and teachers have now lost their role.

In the Assign role sections, the number of studets are 0. We were expecting to see 2000 students in there and now they are 0.

We tired adding a few students but after a short period of time, the number goes back to 0.

Worst still, it seems that everyone can edit the site. I have tried editing the roles of students to be more restirctive, but concerned that most of the settings was set to undefined. But I don't understand, why are all users (Previously had student roles) now able to edit the front page and add / remove blocks? Term starts next week and everyone is starting to panic.

I will try 1.9.2+ tonight but should I just give up now and revert back to 1.6 while I still can (From backups ofc)?

P.S. I tried changing the Frontpage settings so the Default Front Page Role is Admin but users that have no role assigned can still do as they please.

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In reply to Cliff Cassell

Re: Site news problems / priviledges with Moodle 1.9.2 (Build 20080711)

by Richard Enison -
CC,

Considering the time pressure, I would say the things to do, in this order, are:
  1. Make a complete backup (b/u) of your Moodle site as it is now.
  2. Restore your backup of the last version that worked, as far as your problem with roles and capabilities is concerned, on your production server.
  3. In your leisure, while you are using the older version of Moodle for production purposes, restore your b/u of the 1.9.1+ Moodle on a test server somewhere that only you and your fellow admins have access to.
  4. On the test server, check out the things suggested in HF's post of last Thursday. See if fixing those things fixes the problem.
  5. If not, find out exactly what roles different kinds of users (based on the roles they had in the 1.6 site) have in the important contexts (system, front page, courses, etc.).
  6. Find out what capabilities are associated with those roles, and if any of those assignments need to be changed once everyone has the right roles.
  7. From your description, either users somehow got assigned the wrong roles, or the roles had the wrong capabilities. I suspect that mostly it is the former, which is why your student count is 0. That's why step #5 is important.
  8. When you upgraded to 1.8, did you follow the upgrade instructions specifically for 1.8, especially http://docs.moodle.org/en/Upgrading_to_Moodle_1.8#Roles_and_capabilities? If not, that's probably the cause of your problem.
  9. Now that you have determined exactly what needs to be changed in terms of legacy roles, capabilities, defaults, etc., changes have probably already been made on the production system, so we don't want to wipe all that out by restoring from the test system to the production system. Instead, at night when it is not being used, upgrade the production system again (after backing it up, of course!), this time pausing at 1.8 to make sure everything is working right and all the roles and capabilities are right. Then upgrade to 1.9.
  10. If you are not able to get it working right in time for the next day's business, restore the backup of the 1.6 site that you made that night and try again another night. Take notes on why it wasn't working so you can get it working sooner the next time. Practice makes perfect!
RLE
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