Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -
Number of replies: 16

My organization's Moodle 2.0 administrator installed the Collapsed Topics module. When I select this format in the drop-down list and save, however, my course page goes blank--no topics list or anything else appears. Once I backtrack and reselect the typical Topics format, the course topics list reappears. Any ideas as to what is keeping this format module from working?

If it makes any difference, we are also using conditional activities throughout the course. Would this be a limitation?

Thanks!

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

Please could you first check you are using the right version of Collapsed Topics for Moodle 2.0 and not 1.9 - see the readme.txt file.  If this is not the issue, please could you post a screen shot and full details of your installation, i.e. any customisations from the baseline such as plugins / themes.  If you are using a custom theme, please check to see that there is not an issue with that by temporarily switching to a default theme.

Regards,

Gareth

Developer of Collapsed Topics.

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

Thanks for the reply, Gareth. I've forwarded your message to the site administrator. I feel certain the right version was installed, but we may have some customization that's affecting things.

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

This is the information I received from the administrator:

Version 2.0 - confirmed.

No customizations (yet).

Theme: Moodle default.

PHP version 5.3.5.

PHP built on Windows NT U15324514 5.2 build 3790 (Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 Edition Service Pack 2) i586

Web server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

Would there be any possibility of a conflict if we are integrating Moodle into a Joomla! site? There hasn't been any problem using the default formats.

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

Oh, forgot to do the screenshot, but it's too late, anyway: the administrator was using the default theme when she first installed the collapsed topics format and it didn't work; she's since changed that theme, so I can't really show you what it looked like before. In essence, however, when I selected Collapsed Topics and saved the change, the screen that followed was just blank--no block for course content and no blocks on the side, either--just a blank screen.

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Additionally Jennifer could you do a 'view source' for the web page that has the issue and also see if it affects empty courses.  I've tried with conditional activiteis with success.

Thanks,

Gareth

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for the information.

Catistrophic failure like the one you are experiencing is usually caused by PHP issues.  Is there anything in your Web Server logs to indictate an issue??

I do not think there is an issue with Joomla until logs demonstrate otherwise.

Thanks,

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

You can find the php logs such as C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\ZendServer\logs\php_error.log

by seeing the value of error_log under the core section of the php info from the Moodle -> Site Administration -> server - PHP Info

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

Random thought, but please could you tell me your sites shortname completely with all characters / spaces.

Thanks,

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

Gareth, as far as the PHP info goes, I'm going to have to forward that question on to the admin here, as I don't really know what to look for. However, the following (including some images) may give some idea of what's going on.

I created a test course (called "test") and initially made the course format Collapsed Topics. I'm attaching an image of what the result was (test_collapsedtopics_appearance.gif) and the bottom portion of the source code for that page (test_collapsedtopics_endinglines.gif). Then I backed out of that and changed the format to Topics. I'm attaching corresponding images of the appearance and code for that. As you can see, the Collapsed Topics source code ends way too soon, though I don't know what this means. Any ideas?

Oh, the short name of the course I had been working on is Understanding EMAC.

Thank you so much for your interest in this. I definitely appreciate it!

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

Let me know if those images are not large enough. After sending, I realized that the code may be way too tiny for you to read well.

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

Oh, one other thing: the images I attached show the course using a theme other than the default. When the problem first occurred, however, we were using the default Moodle theme.

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

Thanks for the images, they seem to make sense.  But could you tell me your 'site's shortname not the course please ;)

Also, has the format.php file been modified at all for persistent cookies as I have realised one of the instructions in the readme.txt file is wrong (now fixed and live tomorrow).

The php log from the admin would be useful if it shows up an issue.

It also appears somebody else is having a similar problem, but she has not got back to me.  The snag is, I cannot replicate the issue even with standard themes.  Which is why I think it is something to do with the code:

$PAGE->requires->js('/course/format/topcoll/lib_min.js');

$PAGE->requires->js_function_call('topcoll_init',                                      array($CFG->wwwroot,                                            preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9]/", "", $SITE->shortname),                                            $course->id,                                            null)); // Expiring Cookie Initialisation - replace 'null' with your chosen duration.

 

failing.  I believe that JavaScript is turned on.

Thanks,

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

I've created my own Moodle 2 site on the web and still cannot replicate the issue.  Would it be possible to zip up the topcoll folder you have and attach to see if there is a difference?

Thanks,

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Jennifer Perkins -

Gareth, could I e-mail you the topcoll zip file rather than upload it to the forum? Admin here would prefer to keep it off the forum, if possible. Please let me know if that's suitable. Thanks!

One note: the admin has told me that "we are not running on a Zend server. We are using php with fastcgi." Could that be an issue?

JP

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

eMail would be good please smile, I'll message you the details.  Oh, the Zend server was an example, regardless of installation, there should be server logs which should help with narrowing down the issue.

Regards,

Gareth

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In reply to Jennifer Perkins

Re: Course Seems to Disappear When Using Collapsed Topics Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Jennifer,

Thanks for the eMail.  The issue is a misconfiguation by your administrator not reading the instructions clearly.  Please see my eMail reply.  If this does not get through, please let me know.

Regards,

Gareth

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