Hello,
We are in the process of transitioning to a new server for summer and the fall. Part of this transition is moving some of the old content from the old server to the new server. We have done this before and have not had nearly as many backup and restore problems as I am having right now.
The major problem is that many of the backup files that were created on our old server are not behaving well on the new server Both the servers are the identical version and build (Moodle 1.9.5 (Build: 20090520)
When I try to restore some courses, I get the error message, "Course ID was incorrect (can't find it)" This causes the backup to stop. I worked around this by only backing up one kind of content at a time (first Assignment, then Forum, the Quizzes, etc.) and this seemed to work. However, when I do that apparently it corrupts the course in some way because I then cannot create another backup of the course. When I try to do this, hitting restore takes me to a screen that is asking me to choose a course (I think the same screen that you get when you are backing a course up into another course).
None of these problems occur when I restore a file created on the old server to the old server, only when I try to restore a backup file created on the old server to the new server.
This is really slowing down my work, and it is very frustrating. Does anyone have any ideas.
Geoff Brewster
Moodle Administrator
College of LAS
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
In reply to Geoffrey Brewster
Re: Major Backup and Restore Problem in 1.9.5
Hi Geoffrey,
some ideas that can be useful to find the cause of your problems:
1) In the new server, enable DEBUG_DEVELOPER, to see if the page shows you more info.
2) Specify how many activities are in your course and at what exact point you get the error (when unzipping, after the big form selecting what to restore...). Any detail will be welcome in order to be able to understand/reproduce the problem (1st step before trying to fix anything).
3) Check that both your apache and php settings are correct in order to support BIG file uploads and POST requests. Both the "LimitRequestBody" setting in Apache and "upload_max_filesize" and "post_max_size" should be set to, at least 16MB. Note that specially the apache setting uses to be really small in some linux distros and it prevents both file uploads and big forms (like the restore one) to work. See this section of the Administration FAQ in Moodle Docs.
4) Create one issue in the Moodle Tracker, detailing everything needed to understand and reproduce the problem. Any tiny piece of information about the process / configuration can be really important so, be exhaustive.
5) Finally, knowing that you are basically migrating your existing site to a new server... perhaps the best alternative to have the new one working easier and reliably... is to perform one Site backup to get everything in place. Then you can safely delete those parts you aren't interested anymore. Definitively, better approach that restoring courses individually.
Hope it helps, ciao
some ideas that can be useful to find the cause of your problems:
1) In the new server, enable DEBUG_DEVELOPER, to see if the page shows you more info.
2) Specify how many activities are in your course and at what exact point you get the error (when unzipping, after the big form selecting what to restore...). Any detail will be welcome in order to be able to understand/reproduce the problem (1st step before trying to fix anything).
3) Check that both your apache and php settings are correct in order to support BIG file uploads and POST requests. Both the "LimitRequestBody" setting in Apache and "upload_max_filesize" and "post_max_size" should be set to, at least 16MB. Note that specially the apache setting uses to be really small in some linux distros and it prevents both file uploads and big forms (like the restore one) to work. See this section of the Administration FAQ in Moodle Docs.
4) Create one issue in the Moodle Tracker, detailing everything needed to understand and reproduce the problem. Any tiny piece of information about the process / configuration can be really important so, be exhaustive.
5) Finally, knowing that you are basically migrating your existing site to a new server... perhaps the best alternative to have the new one working easier and reliably... is to perform one Site backup to get everything in place. Then you can safely delete those parts you aren't interested anymore. Definitively, better approach that restoring courses individually.
Hope it helps, ciao