New Moodler with site problem

New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -
Number of replies: 17

Hello. I am a new moodle user and have a question. (I actually have more than one, but the one I need a solution for is very important).

I recently added moodle to my domain. After not succeding the last time I tried to use the program, I actually have my moodle site built and am adding content for my users.

I am noticing that each time I need to move out of moodle to work elsewhere, I am asked for my user/pass again, and each time I am being told it is incorrect and I have to have a new one mailed to me and do a reset. That is the first part of the problem.

The second part is that when I get into my moodle site and begin working, I am seeing changes in my documents. I don't mean small minor changes, I am talking about words have been changed to the point where the meaning of the original information has now become distorted. This has been happening all night. (I've been up all night trying to get this working right)

The nature of my discussions and subject matter require that the words I've entered into my site are unalterd. Can someone help me with this? I'd be happy to have a little help. I'm very new at this whole webmaster/admin and creating this all by myself thing. While I am enjoying what I am making, I'm getting really frustrauted now.

Thanks,

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by Ray Lawrence -
Sounds weird. When reading your post the first thing which sprang to mind was that someone else has access to your machine and email address.

If that is the case perhaps the following might help:
  1. Edit your profile so that you have a new - secret - password.
  2. Change your email address to one to which only you have access (alternatively change the authentication method to "Manual accounts only".
  3. Create a - secret - enrolment key for your course(s).

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In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

I am inclined to go with your theory for more than one reason. I am not quite sure what to do now. I have gone and edited the key and a'm still seeing altered text. I know that as an Author, I make spelling and technical errors; thank God for editors and spell checkers.

This is actual content alteration. If you wouldn't mind, I can show you my site. I am upset but now more shocked than upset. I have worked the entire night through and my forums have been altered. The topics and summaries are changed. I would never have written what I now see on my site.

If you can help me, I would be very grateful. My moodle site is here:

http://steppingthroughtrauma.com/.moodle/

Please don't judge the site too harshly. I only learned how to moodle yesterday. Even the Site name and phrase in  egg is not something I would write. LOL whatever is happening is not something I can't edit again, but I've been retyping the same things for hours.

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

I need help please. I have no clue what happened when I powered down my laptop and went for a drive. When I came back to work on my site again I found a million emails about my moodle password. This time both my mail programs were flooded with the change pass link. Now I can view my site using the url in my browser, but I can't view my courses nor do I have access to my admin area. When I click the change pass link and then check mail again for the temp info, I attempt login and it is saying that the login is incorrect.

The last reply I added here was all I have done on my computer. I turned it off and went to the store.

I just logged into my cpanel for my domain and was looking for moodle in my file manager. I see some files there and tried to view the index and the admin file. I am getting a message saying that there is no such file, or it no longer exists.

Is there anything I can do to fix this. The site is online, but I have no access to anything except the ability to browse. I can't even get the key to enroll in my own classmixed

I will be online trying to solve this problem and would apprecieate any help. I have NO knowledge of php.. I am just trying to learn it. That is what I loved about building my moodle site. The frame was built. I just had to fill the house. Now I'm locked out... LOL

utterly frustrated,

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by Steve Hyndman -

Robin,

I tried to look at your site, but you have forced login and have disabled the guest button...I didn't want to create an account.

I did notice that you have a "." in the url before your moodle directory....I've never seen this before. I don't imagine this is causing the problem you described, but I wonder if it won't cause other problems??

Steve

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In reply to Steve Hyndman

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

I am clueless and don't know what happened. I am wondering if that is why I can't see my class in my browser. When I installed moodle, I did an auto install that was available on my server. I thought the url was www.steppingthroughtrauma.com/moodle but now I don't know. If you'd like I can request AGAIN... LOL my new logon pass info and can email it to you and you are welcome to take a look at this mess.

I was getting so excited because this has been so much fun and I actually did it semi correctly. Last time I tried to moodle, I made a huge mess and installed files that I couldn't find and used a ton of space on my server.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. I am on coffee overdrive and ready to moodle some more.

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

OK, I actually was able to log into my site, but only as a general viewer. I can't enroll in my classes or access my admin area.

If anyone can help me with this, please feel free to email me at either of the following :

myvoice23@cox.net

robin@steppingthroughtrauma.com

Thanks so much.

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by Ray Lawrence -
Robin,

The measures I suggested will not make any difference to the text, but hopefully secure the site against someone else having access to it.

Like Steve, I didn't want to create an account - for the time being the fewer accounts you have on the site the better it would seem to me. smile

It seems that the key thing is to find the latest password you entered as a new password for the admin account. That will be in those emails somewhere.

Alternatively you could dive into the depths of editing the database. I was sure there were some instructions on how to retrieve a password in the forums, but I the ones I can find require use of the Guest p/w. As youve disabled the Guest button these may not work. Perhaps a database guru will be able to help.

If it comes to the worst it may be simpler to start again (especially if your work has been badly messed around) and secure your site from the off.

BTW did you know you can install Moodle on your laptop and upload to a server later. This would give you complete control in the meantime. Have a look here: http://goohio.com/moodle/

Edit:

"OK, I actually was able to log into my site, but only as a general viewer. I can't enroll in my classes or access my admin area."

Are you logging on as the administrator or as an "ordinary" user?



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In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

Thank you so much. I am going to visit the google site and keep a local copy on my laptop.

I am trying to learn php but I don't know what I'm doing and afraid to play around in a database that is supposed to be working.

I do have myphpAdmin and myslq if that means anything... I have looked in myphpAdmin and can see my entire moodle directory, but there isn't a moodle index page in the database.

If you know where I should look in myphpAdmin, I will try that. I am familiar with the layout only and what structure I am viewing. As far as what it all does... that's unfamiliar territory.

I can copy mymoodle pages to my local pc and uninstall from my host, and then just start all over again.

It's good practice I guess...

Again, thanks so much for taking time to help me troubleshoot this mess.

BTW... I looked at EVERY single email from both accounts and even the admin pass/name combo's they gave me did not give me my admin area back.

I will come back when I rebuild all of it and let you know which way I was able to repair everything... Even if I embarrassingly have to just save info and paste it back together... LOL

Respectfully,

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

and to answer your one question... lol, yes I did try to logon as my administrator. No luck

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by Ray Lawrence -
Ah ha! Found it. Try the instrustions in this post. Choose the user id which allowed you to view your site.

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=8779&parent=42354
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

woooooooo hooooooooo... and I thought it was a miracle... as soon as you replied, I went to login again and there it all was.

Should I enable the show guest logon as a general rule? The reason I disabled it was for confidentiality and user privacy measures. Guests are fine, but if you looked at my site, you know why it isn't a site that is going to be open to a lot of guest visits.

When I looked in my logs.. was that you with 16 logon entries? Maybe I am paranoid... but I was looking at my log activity and saw users that I didn't know.

Anyway, I am going to backup mymoodle to my laptop so that I can easily fix this if it happens again.

I'd give you a hug if I knew yawink

Thanks so much

Robin

(who is happy to be able to moodle again)

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In reply to robin blue

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by Ray Lawrence -
Glad to hear that.

Keep guest access off if you want to restrict access to anyone.

I suggest you go to Administration > Authentication and change to Manual accounts only.

Next go to Administration > Edit user accounts and delete all accounts other than your own.


Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: New Moodler with site problem

by robin blue -

Thank you. I wasn't sure how that feature worked. I have changed to manual accounts only and there is a space to enter instructions.

Just out of curiosity... if a visitor wants to join a class, are they sent an email? I was under that impression because I signed up for one of my own classes just to see how it worked and I recieved an email with my class key. Someone emailed me and asked that I provide access to two areas of my site and requested a key. When I enrolled, a key was auto generated and sent to the email I used to log into the site.

Do you have a good suggestion for what I type in the instruction box. I am a little confused because I offer several different courses for different groups of users. I don't know how I would put a generic user/pass in that box because wouldn't it register them for all courses? I know that each course that isn't an open one requires a key.

I'm also wanting to install a few plugins I found on the moodle site but am afraid to install them and mess up everything I just tried to fix.

Thanks again for being so helpful. I would like to learn more so that I can help new moodle users in the future.

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: moodleRay

by robin blue -

I hope I spelled that right. I have sent you an email regarding this problem.  Any help would be apprecieated.  Thanks so much

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

need any help I can get

by robin blue -

Thank you Ray for helping me earlier. It was only temporary however and I emailed you the details. I am extremely upset and have filed a security report and emailed Mr. Douglamas with specific details of the chaos someone is having at my expense. This is not the first time I've been the playground for a hacker. I may not have any php or sql coding knowledge, but I do have a minimal amount of technical knowlege and have learned enough to know that this was an intentional act. I had to log into moodle.org as a guest. I can't log into my own moodle even as a user, and whoever did this has deleted all my moodle files from my host server. I am not certain but fairly sure I know who did this. When I started this discussion after the first attempt to destroy my site was complete, it was only an hour or so before it happened again. In less than two minutes, both times I was denied all admin privilages, user privilages, my work was tampered with, altered, moved and deleted. I had three email accounts one my ISP, one my hosting server and the other my microsoft.net account, I was flooded with user/pass request responders and isnt' it funny that my first moodle site hasn't even been finished, was online and both times this happened, I recieved questionable emails at the same time I lost all control of my sites and the work I've done.

Moodle is an amazing tool for people and it was so good to create an environment that could be used to help other people. I will not let this stop me from starting all over again, or trying a new program. That isn't fair and I refuse to let someone play with my property without holding him/her accountable. I have filed security reports with moodle and have called my ISP and filed a security report. If I can get back into any of my programs this evening I will take what I know and use it to recreate all the work I did, provide the authorities with the information they need and hope that the moodlers here won't think I'm insane for discussing this here. Intellectual property theft, copyright infringment and identity theft are serious crimes and people need to be aware of that.

I hope that you will still welcome me and help me learn how to moodle if I can get through this and protect my work once again. I really am not a person that gets upset like this. My site was something I worked very hard on, it's content was full of my heart and soul, and it's purpose was to provide a service that could help people. I am disappointed that so many intellegent people don't put their skills to better use when they get bored and use their knowlege to harm others.

Thank you,

Robin

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In reply to robin blue

Re: need any help I can get

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I've replied to your emails, but to add to that:

Anyone can cause Moodle to send you an email asking you if you want to change your password. As long as you don't click on the link in them, then nothing is changed and no information is given away.

Is it possible that when you got those emails asking you to change your password, you clicked on the link? Then Moodle would have changed the password and sent you a new one.

Another possibility is that someone already has access to your email account, and so could intercept things that way.

In any case, if I were you I would change passwords EVERYWHERE possible (hosting account, email, Moodle, database etc etc) and make them very hard and difficult-to-guess passwords. Make them long, don't use names of people or pets, mix uppercase and lowercase, add numbers etc...

Don't leave emails with passwords in your mailbox inboxes or outboxes.  Also don't hand them out to people you don't already know well, even people on these forums.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: need any help I can get

by robin blue -

Thank you Martin and again thanks Ray for all your help. The only time I requested moodle to send me the login info, I was putting in correct user/pass info and was sent one email for my request.

Martin, thanks for posting your reply because others can use this information as well. I've found that someone else had access to ALL my accounts and that is why my inboxes were flooded with user/pass changes. I am following instructions and taking the neccessary measures to ensure the security of all my online activities.

Ray offered me another bit of good advice and I'd just like to share it. As a new moodle member, I was so excited about getting my site working and began learning the features that were moodle site basic things. It's easy to forget to mind extremely important technical details when you are absorbed in your work. Building my site has been really fun, but maintaining it so that it is secure and can be a safe environment for my users is just as important as all the fun stuff. Privacy settings, user login authentication, settings and privilages are very important.

Backup and log activity has been useful not only to track the work I have done myself, but record of access and hacked entry using my ip information to gain entry and alter my text, programs and settings helps to keep this from happening again.

Again, Thank you for all your help. I hope this can be useful lesson for any other new moodler out there.

Robin

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