Dear Rick,
This is a long message, so I’ve separated it into two posts. I haven’t solved the problems yet, but at
least we have checked off a list of things (ways not to build a light bulb
:>). With that in mind, we are closer to finding the solution (building one)
:>. I agree that this indeed seems like one thing that’s causing everything
(missing pictures on the page, inability to download most, not all of the
files). It’s just a matter of finding it.
I. What I Have Tried Unsuccessfully So Far:
II. What I’m Looking at Now and Have a Question About
III. Minor Success That I Hope Will Help Others
I. What I Have Tried Unsuccessfully So Far:
I looked into the Opache and php box in the screen shot. It
seems that all is well the. Bluehost seems to be running a recent enough
version.
With the help of Blue host, I set all of the permissions and
all of the directories and files on the server,(except the Moodle data folder),
to blue host defaults (as suggested in there help video). i.e., 755 for
directories and 600 for files. The permissions were all over the place before this.
As you suggested, I then set the Moodle
data directories to 777 and the files to 666. I asked for help from Bluehost to
this because I couldn't figure out how to use the SSH command and doing it by
hand was taking a long time.
As suggested in another forum, I unsuccessfully tried a few
other things:
1.
Enabled and disabled the slasharguments setting
as another site suggestions: Site Administration > Server > HTTP >
enable/disable slash arguments
2.
Deleted, and reinstalled themes. I was using the
clean theme when all this happened.
3.
Dealing specially with the file problem, I duplicated
the Microsoft Word File also tried this with image files, but to no avail.
4.
I checked with Bluehost. The techs say the site
has not been migrated or updated recently. They also tell me that I do not have
too many files and I haven’t hit any usage limits. This last part I found
confusing because the students did get a server is too busy error when 50 of
them were using it. Regardless, no one
has been on the site for days, and I’ve even hidden the classes, so there is absolutely
no load on the system. Nevertheless, all of the problems persist.
5.
I looked at the Moodle updates on my site: I haven’t upgraded MOODLE, and it isn’t done
automatically.
II. What I’m Looking at Now and Have a Question About
As mentioned above I did the following Is it ok to follow this procedure?
“With the help of Blue host, I set
all of the permissions and all of the directories and files on the server,(except
the Moodle data folder), to blue host defaults (as suggested in there help
video). i.e., 755 for directories and 600 for files. The permissions were all
over the place before this. As you suggested,
I then set the Moodle data directories to 777 and the files to 666. I asked for
help from Bluehost to this because I couldn't figure out how to use the SSH
command and doing it by hand was taking a long time.”
2. Reflecting on the term permissions, I looked at the
permissions in the individual files in the Moodle Platform. Administration:
File Administration: Permissions. I’m
attaching a screen shot of what I found. It shows the permission for the one
file that works (about the only one on the site that does work), and an example
of the hundreds that don’t. See “Image
for Question 2”
Question: With this is mind, is it important to deal with
the permissions on the Moodle platform, for example Site
Administration/Administration/User/permissions? Are there other permissions
that I need to look into? If so, which
ones? I’ve looked in there, but there are a lot of them, and I’m not sure which
ones to check.
3 I looked at the assign roles (Administration File module
administration/Locally assigned roles) with regards to the files, it seems that
the roles assigned all have 0’s next to them. Is this a problem or a possible cause? “See Image for Questions 3”.
4. Would it be of any help to copy my error logs here?
III. Minor Success That I Hope Will Help Others
I’m definitely going to look into the suggestions you made backing
up the about reinstalling Moodle on a
fresh server.
1) Install a second moodle on your site. See if a
brand new installation works. If it does, then I would move my production
moodledata into it and my mySQL database into it, and see
if it works.
2) If a new install doesn't work, then it points to
something in your Bluehost account. Maybe something with your php.ini
file?
Overall, I am puzzled and might not be of much more help to
you.
Here is a #3. Purchase another Bluehost server and try installing
moodle. If this works, move your mySQL database and moodledata into
it.
Here is one more important thing to do. Have you
backup up your current moodledata and mySQL database? If not, make sure
to do this before you do too much more experimenting.
In the interest of making sure I have safe copy of my most
important files, I successfully tried the following
The pictures are still blank on the page and in the quizzes,
but I have found a work around to start downloading files (PDF, Word, PPT,
Excel) in case the whole thing crashes while I'm trying to get the Moodle site
back up and running. I found that if I follow this procedure, I can make a back
up copy of each file (PDF, Word, PPT, Excel), not the image files. The image
files still on the server. I’ll try to get those later, but I am not sure how
yet.
In the interest of helping others who might get into this
mess, here is how I recovered the files on my site:
1.
Click the edit button next the file
2.
Click Settings
3.
Click Appearance
4.
Click Force Download
5.
Click Save and Display (the file will download
and you can save it)
6.
Repeat this procedure for every file you want to
save.
I'm attaching some screenshots I hope will make up a helpful guide
Please note that this procedure does not fix the problem and
the teacher and the student will still get the “You are already logged in as “your
name”, you need to log out before logging in as different user. “ error if they
click the main file link. This is just a
way for the manager/teacher to recover files. It’s just a way to download a
safe copy.
I've put this here in the hopes of helping others who are
having similar difficulties :>
The larger problem still remains, but I'm feeling a little
safer having the files backed up.
