Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -
Number of replies: 16

Hi,

After you solved my problem so efficiently last week, I thought I'd ask another question...

We have Hot Pot activities with mp3 files. We have added the audio as media sources, adding Windows Media Player as the player and a simple link.

When we upload the activities as quizports into Moodle and tell it to use Moodle's Standard Media Filter or the Quizport Media Filter, the player is there but no sound comes out. If we choose the None option, the sound works, with the Windows Media Player loading instead.

The strange thing (for me at least) is that when I was learning to use Moodle and only had it operating locally on my computer, the same activities worked with the Moodle filters. It has only been since we uploaded it to the server that we've had problems.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

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In reply to EMILEE MOORE

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hello Emile,
could you possibly upload the quiz and its associated sound files to my server so I can have a closer look:
thanks
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -

Dear Gordon,

I have done that and have been able to check that the Moodle filter works on your site! Obviously it's something on our server that our IT staff are unable to see. Do you have any idea where they could look?

Thanks so much!

Emilee

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In reply to EMILEE MOORE

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Emilee,
I did update the media player insertion code for the HotPot module a couple of weeks ago (in response to an issue that Henny raised). Are you sure you have the most recent version of the module? To be sure, I would suggest to your IT admins that they update you Moodle site or at least the HotPot module to the latest version.

regards
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -
Dear Gordon,

We have updated the version, but we are still having the same problem. It's obviously a problem with our site or server, but we don't know where to start looking for it! Any suggestions?

Thanks so much for your help!
Emilee.
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In reply to EMILEE MOORE

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Emilee,
thanks for updating.

I suggest you look at the source of the HP quiz when it comes into your browser from Moodle. Find the place where the media player has been inserted and check that the urls are what you think they should be.

BTW, if you switch the "Force media players" setting to "Yes", are the standard Moodle players inserted OK?

Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -

Hi again,

Yes, the player comes up fine, it just doesn't play. We have the same problem with the Moodle standard player and the Quizport player.

I have checked the URLs that I get from our page and from yours. On yours, we get absolute URLs to the mp3 files. On ours we get relative URLs, so it seems like we may have identified the problem. What we are still working on is how to fix it. If you can give us a lead that would be great!

Thanks again for all your help!

Emilee.

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Emilee,
good detective work. We must find out why the relative urls are not converted to absolute urls on your site.

Could you tell me ...

  • what version of PHP you are using?
  • which Moodle filter you have enabled?

thanks
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Emilee,
for your information, my server is currently using PHP 5.2.8.

I think the version PHP's PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) module may be particularly relevant to this issue, because it is the PCRE module which is used to search for and replace relative URLs.

Here is the PCRE information for my server:
  • PCRE Support : enabled
  • PCRE Library Version : 7.8 2008-09-05
In case you don't know, you can find the PHP information form the Moodle site administration block -> Server -> PHP info.

cheers
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Gordon,

We have the multimedia plugins enabled only (all mutimedia formats). I have been informed that we are using PHP version 4.4.7 although our server also has version 5.2.11 installed and we could change to that. I am attaching an image which I hope will give us all the information we need. I have not found the information about the PCRE, possibly because the version doesn't have this?

Thanks!

Emilee.

Attachment Imagen1.gif
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Emilee,
I would certainly be interested to know if switching top PHP5 changes the behavior of QuizPort. After switching to PHP5, you willneed tto clear the QuizPort cache: Site administration -> Module -> Activities -> QuizPort -> Clear cache. In fact whle you are investigating this issue, I suggest you disable the QuizPort cache altogether (on the same page).

I will try installing the CubePanel system on my testing server and see if I can reproduce the issue you have reported.

Please let me know the results of switching to PHP5.

regards
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -

Dear Gordon,

The people in charge of the server are working on the switch to PHP5...I will let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, another issue has been brought to my attention. The JCross and JMix quizes we have made are not working in Quizport (we get a page error message). I have checked them on your site to see if it was just our site that was the problem, and they seem to be having some problems there too (see Quizport Emilee Moore - Activity 3 Part A and Activity 5 Part A). One of my colleagues seems to think that this was not a problem until we updated last week, although I can't confirm that. If I upload the same activity as a Hot Potatoes Quiz rather than as part of a Quizport it works fine. I have tried uploading the xml version of the activity rather than the htm version (I read that on the forum) but the problem remains. Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

Emilee.

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In reply to EMILEE MOORE

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Emilee,

the JCross quizzes, Activity 3 Part A and Activity 5 Part A, contained clues with no text and this was the cause of the Javascript error which prevented clues containing just an image being shown. I have fixed the QuizPort javascript now and confirmed that the these two JCross quizzes display without errors now.

The modified scripts are available in the latest QuizPort download.

I could not see a JMix quiz that you had uploaded, so I tested on one of mine, that uses only text, and had no problems. If you would like me to investigate further, please upload a JMix which fails on your site, along with any associated images and sound files, to my server so that I can have look.

thanks
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -

Sorry to bother you again. It seems the IT guys are trying to switch to PHP5.2.9 but each time they make the switch our page stops working. They are asking me whether there are any special procedures to be followed? We are all very new to Moodle...

Thanks again,

Emilee.

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In reply to EMILEE MOORE

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Emilee,
> each time they make the switch (to PHP5.2.9) our page stops working

Do you get an error message on the screen? In the server logs? How abot if you switch on Moodle's debugging while still in PHP4: Moodle site administration -> Server -> Debugging, and then switch to PHP5?

> They are asking me whether there are any special procedures to be followed?

Not as far as I know. Apart, from QuizPort, do you have any non-standard Moodle modules or themes? Maybe there's a conflict in one of the add-ons.

I would concentrate on trying to get the server to print or display an error message about why it can't display "our page".

regards
Gordon
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Hi Emilee,
I tried to download CubePanel but couldn't get a copy anywhere. I found some small 20k and 200k downloads, which looked like they were going to start a web-based install, but they never actually installed anything.

Something is odd about the web site too: www.cubepanel.com. Just a page with a couple of email links. Looks to me like they are in a period of transition, so for the time-being I have called off my attempt to get a first hand look at the problem with the media players on PHP4.

regards
Gordon

Edit: For reference, I will add here that the Cube Panel Lite was at one time available at ...
Info about biztology.com
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Moodle media filters not working with Hot Pots

by EMILEE MOORE -

Hi Gordon,

Thanks so much, you've been very kind helping us. We will update the quizport module and try your suggestions to switch to PHP5 and I'll let you know as soon as we have some results.

Thanks again,

Emilee.

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