What happens to an old SCORM package when a new one is uploaded to replace it?

What happens to an old SCORM package when a new one is uploaded to replace it?

by Dave Fisher -
Number of replies: 1

I am the admin for a Moodle instance version 2.4.8. The site serves up about 220 different courses that are comprised mostly of SCORM packages. When an update is needed to a course, a new SCORM package is output and uploaded in place of the prior version. Care is taken to be sure that the SCORM ID is the same in old and new version so the updated SCORM package won't disrupt user grade data that is already part of that course.

I'm currently trying to track down the reason for a huge amount of disk space storage and started to wonder where old SCORM packages go when a new one is uploaded to replace it. Is the old version still taking up space on the server? If so, is there a way to get rid of it?


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In reply to Dave Fisher

Re: What happens to an old SCORM package when a new one is uploaded to replace it?

by Floyd Saner -

Dave,

It might depend on the version of Moodle you are using. Recent versions of Moodle (maybe as far back as 2.0) tag deleted (orphaned) files and don't fully delete them for some period of time - a week sticks in my mind.

There are several things that can contribute to disk space bloat.

  1. If you have automated backups enabled and have the backup setting to keep all the backups, that will take up a lot of disk space. Even if a SCORM file is deleted, a copy of it will be retained in the backup file.
  2. User logs can take up a lot of space. If you don't need log records going back forever, change the setting in the admin panel to keep logs for some specified amount of time.

If you are convinced the bloat is due to undeleted SCORM modules, there are a couple things you can do.

  1. Wait a week since the last time you deleted a file and see if the disk space used decreases. (I presume cron is running correctly).
  2. Try the File Trash plugin. The latest version of that is Moodle 2.9, but it might work if you have a newer version.
  3. Use phpMyAdmin and look for files in the database, table mdl_files I believe. You should be able to identify old files by the filename, then use filenamehash to identify the location of the file in moodledata. Manually delete the file.

Regards,

Floyd

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