Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by David T -
Number of replies: 6

Hi Everyone,

We have just migrated our moodle installing to a new server and have run in to an issue where manual accounts can log in fine but any other account (or even random string of letters) gives a server error 500 with the below info

The website encountered an error while retrievinghttp://www.mysite.vic.edu.au/moodle/login/index.php. It may be down for maintenance or configured incorrectly.
Reload this web page
Press the reload button to resubmit the data needed to load the page.


We use an external database for authentication which is still running fine for other applications and none of those settings have changed.

We are still running 2.1 due to some custom plug ins. If I turn debugging on I get a blank page instead of the server error 500. Haven't been able to find anything else in the logs. If I turn off friendly http errors in my browser I also get a blank page with the url showing mysite/moodle/login.php


Moodle is set up using xampp on mysql and the server is running server 2012


I was hoping maybe someone else had a similar issue in the past or could point me in the direction of where to look as I am not sure what php is being called different when a log on is in the local users and isn't there.


Thanks for any help or advice

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In reply to David T

Re: Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by David T -

The only strange thing I've been able to find so far is if I go to the plugins overview section of moodle "external database" shows as disabled, however if I go to the authentication section it correctly shows as enabled there.

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In reply to David T

Re: Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Have you migrated https://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_migration or upgraded https://docs.moodle.org/en/Upgrading ? If you upgraded the new version might need a newer plug-in. "just migrated our moodle installing to a new server" is ambigous.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by David T -

We have migrated as per the first link. When logged in as the admin (a local user) and a test local account I created everything else seems to be working fine. Anything that is put in the username field that is not a local user name though gives the 500 error or the blank page with the friendly errors turned off in internet explorer.

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In reply to David T

Re: Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by David T -

Well I just found the debug option for external authentication and I'm now getting an error that actually means something.

It's now saying 


"OURDBSERVERSNAME: Missing extension for mssql

(mssql): SELECT * FROM MoodleEnrolment_V WHERE Username = 'randomstringitypedinforusername' AND NewPassword = ''  

"


So I am guessing somewhere along the line we are missing the extensions to talk to MSSQL. Now I've at least got somewhere to look. The mssql extension is showing as enabled in my php.ini, I'm thinking the mssql connection might still need some other drivers?


EDIT:

I've installed the sql extensions and they now show in my phpinfo but the error remains. It appears my newer php version no longer supports mssql.dll and the mssql commands that the old version supported are what is causing the issue. Have others faced this problem? 

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In reply to David T

Re: Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by Luis de Vasconcelos -

In your first post you said: "Moodle is set up using xampp on mysql and the server is running server 2012", but in this post you say: "So I am guessing somewhere along the line we are missing the extensions to talk to MSSQL."

How can you be using MSSQL if you are using XAMPP? The XAMPP package uses MySQL, not MSSQL (SQL Server).

So what are you using? SQL Server or MySQL?

Lastly, if this is a production server then you really should avoid the XAMPP package.

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In reply to Luis de Vasconcelos

Re: Migrated servers now only manual user accounts can log in

by David T -

Hi Luis,

Our moodle runs on mysql but authenticates against an mssql database used for other purposes. I've got this working now for the mean time using an older version of php that still supports those commands. We have someone else who knows far more than I do about moodle (I've just kept this installation going based on how it was previously set up by others because it's worked for out purpose) who does work for us on occasion I will need to have him look in to this further at a later date.


What were the issues with xampp? As I said earlier I've inherited this set up and just left it running as is.

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