Automated backups not backing up large courses

Automated backups not backing up large courses

by Bob Ross -
Number of replies: 5

Hi all,

I'm not sure this entirely belongs here but we are having issues with backing up large courses via cron. Manual backups also time out. The size of these courses are around 1.7 - 2GB, and we are looking to reduce these significantly by replacing files uploaded off teacher PC's with items added from a Equella repository.

Despite replacing these files with Equella objects, we are finding the course size isn't really reducing. We suspect that the uploaded files are still associated with the course in some way. I suppose the reason I'm posting is to ask if anyone knows a way to remove these uploaded files from the course, in a bid to get automated backups to complete.

 

Server 2008, PHP 5.3.18, Moodle 2.4.4 if that helps

 

Thanks

Nicholas Lidden

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In reply to Bob Ross

Re: Automated backups not backing up large courses

by Jeff White -

How long does it take you to back up the course manually?

Do you have completion tracking and grade history enabled for this course?

How many quizzes do you have running for this course?

How many students do you have enrolled in the class?

Are you getting any error when running debug mode while the backups are running?

 

Changing this variable in moode/backup/controller/backup_controller.class.php worked for me with a course that had a massive number of students with quizzes and completion tracking enabled:

public function execute_plan() {
// Basic/initial prevention against time/memory limits
set_time_limit(1 * 60 * 60); // 1 hour for 1 course initially granted
raise_memory_limit(MEMORY_EXTRA);
return $this->plan->execute();
}

 

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In reply to Jeff White

Re: Automated backups not backing up large courses

by Bob Ross -

Hi Jeff,

The courses won't back up manually either and they usually time out after 10 minutes.

There is completion tracking and grade history for most of our courses and there are no quizzes in this course.

There is about 70-80 students in the course.

The only error received is:

Coding error detected, it must be fixed by a programmer: backup_helper::store_backup_file() expects valid $filepath parameter

There is a tracker relating to this issue at https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-34388?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:changehistory-tabpanel, but the solution suggested we've been told not to implement, for company policy reasons.

Also I checked backup_controller.class.php and this value was already set to 1 * 60 *60.

 

 

 

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In reply to Bob Ross

Re: Automated backups not backing up large courses

by james mergenthaler -

One approach may be to make a copy of your course - back it up (with no student data) then restore it manually.  Then try to whittle the content of the copy.  This would allow you to systematically remove files and tweak other settings.  While whittling, create backups of the course until you really start to see its size reduce.

Good luck.

This post may help a little.

 

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In reply to Bob Ross

Re: Automated backups not backing up large courses

by james mergenthaler -

One approach may be to make a copy of your course - back it up (with no student data) then restore it manually.  Then try to whittle the content of the copy.  This would allow you to systematically remove files and tweak other settings.  While whittling, create backups of the course until you really start to see its size reduce.

Good luck.

This post may help a little.

 

Average of ratings: -
In reply to james mergenthaler

Re: Automated backups not backing up large courses

by Chris Chapman -

Having the same problem- cant backup manually or automatically above 1GB, and also cant restore a course above 1.6GB, and nobody seems to have worked on a fix for 2.5 and below (as far as I have seen, hopefully im mistaken)- all efforts seem to have been concentrated on making sure 2.6 can handle them. 

 

looks like im going to have to do an early upgrade antd try and make 2.6 look identical to 2.5.... hoping i can turn off the new activity chooser...

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