Hello Dan,
Would AICC be a viable alternative to avoid these messages?
Thanks,
Michelle
Whilst I am not in favour of making changes to the core, if you wish to reduce the frequency of these notifications, rather than turning them off completely, you should be able to do this by editing the moodle-core-checknet.js file. This is found in "moodle/lib/yui/build/moodle-core-checknet/moodle-core-checknet.js. The default is to display the warning every ten second (10000 milliseconds).
I would think a safe setting is 5 minutes. The user will still be notified of the problem, but at least it will not popup so often. Modify line 160 as follows: change "value: 10000" to "value: 300000". You may increase this number to meet your needs. Ideally this is better done using a local plugin rather than changing the core. Otherwise your settings are overwritten when you update your installation.
/**
* The frequency (in milliseconds) that checks should be run.
* A new check is not begun until the previous check has completed.
*
* @attribute frequency
* @writeOnce
* @type Number
* @value 10000
*/
frequency: {
value: 300000
},
/**
Hi Mathieu
I agree with you about avoiding editing the core moodle code. How do I go about using a local plugin to override moodle-core-checknet.js? I've made local plugins before so it's just the overriding of the frequency in moodle-core-checknet.js that I need help with.
Thanks
you can't override this using a plugin - we increased the values in 2.8.8, 2.9.2 and higher versions (MDL-49647) to a 4 second timeout and a re-test every 10 seconds. If your server is regularly taking longer than 4 seconds to return a simple text file from the server this is a much bigger issue and IMO you should not be modifying the code and "ignoring" the issue. SCORM requires a fast/reliable internet connection and a fast/reliable server otherwise bad stuff happens... and it's a real pain to diagnose and track down!
Of course that doesn't help you much if you're using the 2.7 branch which still uses the older values (2 second timeout, 5 second re-test) so you will need to modify the core code.
here's the full patch applied to the 2.8 and 2.9 branches: 552281e46
Thanks Dan
I am using moodle 2.9.1. Yeah, I'm not sure why the scorm alerts are such a problem. I even get the alerts popping up when I am using my localhost which seems crazy as the client and server are the same machine.
I have commented out the checknet code in projects for other clients (moodle 2.7.2, 2.8.1 and lately 2.9.1) as the popups make the scorm unusable and we haven't had problems with the reporting not working so the internet is fine, it's just the alerts that are the issue.
I'll try your patch otherwise will have to continue commenting out the core code for now.
sure - Just don't come complaining here if your clients find that the data isn't reporting reliably
Haha I'll keep trying to figure out the root cause of why the alerts are showing up so often. I'm just out of ideas for now haha.
Hi Dan
Is it possible that if a client works from behind a firewall, that the firewall can cause a delay and therefore the server will see it as a interruption or unreliable connection?
And that ipads / apple computers are more susceptible to this or might have some type of firewall or security measures of their own which might cause the problem?
I do not want to disable the message, because I need 100 % tracking. Most of our clients do not experience the problem, but we have one group of clients from the same company who are experiencing the problem, but only those working from Apple computers /ipads.
Anything that sits between your web-server and the device that accesses your system has the potential to cause issues. I did see some iPad related issues with the original timings used in versions prior to 2.7.8 and 2.8.6 but haven't since we made the checks less aggressive. Make sure you are using a recent stable supported release of Moodle higher than 2.7.8 and 2.8.6 - failing that if you manage to find out what causes the network in-stability please let us know!
Adding another data point here.. with a number of our learners using computers at their work place (hospital/health care settings), about 3% of them are reporting that they are getting the popups. So far all of these look to have been false alarms, as the modules are still getting tracked properly for them.
For some people it is still happening repeatedly though I have loosened the settings to be check every 30 seconds with a 10 second timeout. We're on Moodle 2.8.7 at the moment.
And on further investigation, it looks like in one case even the 10 seconds timeouts are too short. In that case it seems the organization is having bandwidth problems at peak times, meaning the latency of their internet requests can range up to 30 seconds or 60 seconds long.
I'm going to keep the timeout at 10 seconds.. at that point, I think the learners have a right to know that they should be complaining about their internet connection to whoever is providing it.
Hi Michelle
We are currently facing the same problem with regards to the error message that comes up in SCORM. I was wondering if you were able to solve this problem using AICC or any alternative to SCORM? I am able to upload the AICC file into moodle 2.9.1 but then it does not open. If you have any advice I would be very grateful, or if anyone else does.
Thanks
Annette