Broken 'Plugins Check' page

Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Sim Rowsell -
Antal svar: 8

Hi all,


I'm pretty new to Moodle and this forum so I'm hoping you can help me!


I've been running Moodle 2.7 fine for a few weeks now on a test server (a copy of our live one). Using the Essential theme we've done lots of modifying of page design and layout, moving around blocks and changing pictures etc to make it look how we want. It's all been going well and there haven't really been any problems. Until now...


Problem

A couple of days ago I tried installing a little plugin (this one - https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=block_course_menu). Ever since then my 'Plugins Check' page seems to be broken (see attached image) which has the url moodle/admin/index.php . Every time I try to go to Site Administration -> Notifications or install/update another plugin I'm directed to this page which is clearly completely broken. The contents jump around a bit when you hover over it and I'm given an error message that says [MAIN CONTENT GOES HERE - mLXSoMIxZH]. The letters in that error change now and again. Initially when I tried accessing moodle/index.php as admin I would be redirected to this page too but I've just commented out the redirect from line 63 of moodle/index.php to get around that for now. Obviously this problem means I can't install or upgrade any plugins.


Solutions attempted

  1. I've uninstalled the plugin including removing it's folder from the blocks directory on the server. Moodle isn't picking it up in Plugins Overview anymore. Alas, no luck.
  2. I've tried replacing the possibly corrupt moodle/admin/index.php with a fresh copy of the file from the original Moodle 2.7 download files but it didn't make any difference. Could this prove that it isn't necessarily the file but something the file is generating or accessing that is broken? Is there a Plugins Check file elsewhere that could be corrupt?
  3. I've turned debugging on to developer level and it doesn't give me any debugging messages at all.
  4. Rebooted the server and cleared the caches - that kind of stuff.


System Info

I'm running Moodle 2.7 with PHP 5.5.12, MySQL 5.6.17 on Apache 2.4.9 on Windows Server 2008 R2.


Any help or advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciated please!


Thank you in advance leende

Sim

Bilaga broken.JPG
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Re: Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Howard Miller -
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Given the confusion that appears to have set in... I would replace the entire Moodle code with a freshly downloaded copy. Just copy your config.php file over from the old to the new and you will be good to go. Your existing data files and database will be intact. 

Does that make any difference?

If you hadn't mentioned the plugin thing, I would have guessed you had done something wrong in the theme. What happens if you switch to the (say) Clean theme?

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Re: Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Sim Rowsell -

Hi Howard,


Thanks for your quick response. Yeh the confusion has well and truly set in!


I've tried switching it to Clean and that works completely fine. Thinking that that means it's a problem with the Essential theme I replaced the Essential theme with a fresh copy and that now works for the plugins check (hooray) but unfortunately completely breaks the home page, that being the one with most of the design modifications made to it (see attached).


Do you know of any way to install a fresh copy of Essential but be able to put back the design changes made to the home page without having to rebuild them? I could just replace Moodle with a fresh copy as you say but I'm just trying to save all the home page design changes so that they don't have to be rebuilt all over again. This might not be possible but I figured the design changes must be stored in some config file of sorts somewhere right?


I hope that makes sense! Sorry if it's a load of waffle...


Thanks again!

Sim

Bilaga broken_home.JPG
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Re: Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Howard Miller -
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It all comes down to what exactly you mean by "design changes" blandade

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Re: Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Sim Rowsell -

Things like adding blocks, moving blocks around, uploading new pictures, changing the odd colour. The kind of stuff you do when you turn on editing mode in browser. All these changes have been made through the browser rather than directly editing theme files on the server.


Maybe I'm way off on how designing the pages work. My understanding is that a page's design is partly controlled by the theme and partly controlled by the changes made in browser via editing mode. Is there somewhere where these in browser 'higher level' modifications are stored or are they intertwined with the theme? My thinking is that if there are separate files for these changes then I could copy them into the fresh install of the Essential theme and effectively fix my problem.


Please tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree! As I say, I'm relatively new to this...


Cheers

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Re: Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Howard Miller -
Bild av Core developers Bild av Documentation writers Bild av Particularly helpful Moodlers Bild av Peer reviewers Bild av Plugin developers

Yep - you shouldn't come unstuck making changes through the UI.

Where did you get the Essential theme from? If you got it from the Plugins directory you should note that the latest version is only for Moodle 2.6, not 2.7. So, it's not entirely surprising you are getting problems. 

Julian Ridden is no longer involved with Moodle and I'm unsure if that theme is still supported. This is always the risk with optional plugins of all kinds - the owner goes off to do something else. 

Basically, I would strongly encourage you to build your customisations on top of a properly supported theme, one that Moodle ships with. To do anything else involves a degree of risk.

You could also have a look at the Elegance theme, which is similar in outlook but has been picked up and is still developed. See https://github.com/thedannywahl/moodle-theme_elegance

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Re: Broken 'Plugins Check' page

av Sim Rowsell -

Ah good to know I'm at least on the right page!


Thanks for the info on Essential - I'd downloaded it from the plugins directory. It's release is confusingly named Essential 2.7 but is in fact for Moodle 2.6 so I missed it!


Elegance looks really nice thanks, I'll definitely give that a look. The latest release of Elegance is only for Moodle 2.6 but do you suppose as it's still being developed that it's more likely to be stable and released for Moodle 2.7 in the future? I guess that's better than Essential which isn't being developed at all...


Do you know of any similar themes that are Moodle 2.7 supported by any chance?


Thanks so much for your help - made my day a lot less stressful!

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