Moodle Keeps Crashing

Moodle Keeps Crashing

by Graham Stone -
Number of replies: 4
Picture of Testers

Good Morning,

We have started having a problem with our Moodle keep crashing and wondered if anybody had any suggestions.  Our Moodle setup is 2.9.1 on a virtual Windows Server 2008 using IIS and MySQL.

Our Moodle has been on the same server and has ran without any major problems for over 2 years then a few weeks ago it started hanging and crashing.  We have tried a few different things to fix this including changing the max allowed database connections from 100 to 800, and adjusting the max instances in the FastCGi settings.

Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Graham Stone

Re: Moodle Keeps Crashing

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

So, the obvious question is what changed a few weeks?  Upgrade on the server?  Upgraded Moodle?  Is this a virtual server?  Running on a SAN?

When my Moodle site was hanging and crashing it was the connection to the SAN that was having issues.  A failing or full hard drive might do the same.  However, there might also be a thousand other reasons.

Have you looked at your server logs?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Graham Stone

Re: Moodle Keeps Crashing

by Paul Verrall -

You need to systematically establish which part of the hardware or software stack is failing, if the stack is fine Moodle will be fine.

First thing though, if you don't have a backup, take one now!

OK, so,

  • Crash in what way exactly, and how do you recover when it does? e.g. is the VM crashing or just part of the Moodle stack (ISS/MySQL etc)?
  • Is there any pattern to this?
  • What is the servers load like when this happens? I/O or CPU bound, Memory/Pagefile use etc....,
  • What processes are running/appearing to cause issues? 
  • What lead you to believe it was DB connections at fault or fastcgi instances?
  • Is there any useful info/reporting/log from your VM hypervisor?
  • Also, like Emma says... server logs?



Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Graham Stone

Re: Moodle Keeps Crashing

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

"crashing" doesn't really make any sense in the context of a web application. 

What *exactly* happens or doesn't happen?

What's in your web server error log?

If you haven't already, switch on Debugging in Moodle!

In MySQL (assuming that's what you are using), how many connections are sitting around when it fails? ('show processlist' is the command you want). 

What else have you done to try to diagnose this?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Moodle Keeps Crashing

by Graham Stone -
Picture of Testers

Hi all,

Thanks for the suggestions so far however I think I have discovered what was causing the problem.  From looking through the PHP errors I noticed that there were a lot of errors linked to a local plugin called collacows which is a plugin that links a product called MyDay to our Moodle.  A section of the  error log can be seen below.  Once I disabled this plugin through MyDay the PHP started to work again.  I am now working with the company that provides MyDay to fix this.


wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 26
[11-Nov-2015 09:02:59 UTC] PHP Warning:  include_once(modules/Quizzies.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 25
[11-Nov-2015 09:02:59 UTC] PHP Warning:  include_once(): Failed opening 'modules/Quizzies.php' for inclusion (include_path='C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle/lib/zend;C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle/lib/pear;.;C:\php\pear') in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 25
[11-Nov-2015 09:02:59 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Class 'Quizzies' not found in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 26
[11-Nov-2015 09:18:26 Europe/London] PHP Warning:  include_once(modules/Quizzies.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 25
[11-Nov-2015 09:18:26 Europe/London] PHP Warning:  include_once(): Failed opening 'modules/Quizzies.php' for inclusion (include_path='C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle/lib/zend;C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle/lib/pear;.;C:\php\pear') in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 25
[11-Nov-2015 09:18:26 Europe/London] PHP Fatal error:  Class 'Quizzies' not found in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 26
[11-Nov-2015 09:21:37 UTC] PHP Warning:  include_once(modules/Quizzies.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 25
[11-Nov-2015 09:21:37 UTC] PHP Warning:  include_once(): Failed opening 'modules/Quizzies.php' for inclusion (include_path='C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle/lib/zend;C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle/lib/pear;.;C:\php\pear') in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 25
[11-Nov-2015 09:21:37 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Class 'Quizzies' not found in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\moodle\local\collabcows\moduleInterface\moduleManger.php on line 26
[11-Nov-2015 09:23:11 Europe/London] Missing session ID, session not started!

Average of ratings: -