Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Wildcat Applications -
Number of replies: 7

Dear All,

I am maintaining an instance of Moodle for a customer.

It was originally running Moodle 3.0, and I have upgraded it to 3.2, 3.3 and now 3.5.

It is hosted on OVH Performance 1 shared hosting, running PHP 7.2 and MySQL 5.6, and it uses the latest Academi theme and Local Static Pages plugin.

Since April, running 3.3, and now with 3.5 it produces "Undefined" boxes on every page while logged in.

If I use the Web Developer Network option in Firefox I can see 403 errors for these two requests on every page:

https://mysite.com/lib/ajax/service.php?sesskey=ZMjoCx0IiT&info=message_popup_get_unread_popup_notification_count

https://mysite.com/lib/ajax/service.php?sesskey=ZMjoCx0IiT&info=core_fetch_notifications

On some pages I can also see a 403 error for this request:

https://mysite.com/lib/ajax/service-nologin.php?sesskey=ZMjoCx0IiT&info=core_output_load_fontawesome_icon_map

I have searched extensively on here in English and French, and have not been able to resolve this on my own. I have tried changing the PHP version, making sure the .htaccess file forces HTTPS, converting links to HTTPS, making sure all of the cron tasks have run, disabled non essential features like web services and the messages system.

I'd hugely appreciate any suggestions you might have.

Many thanks,

Hugh

Attachment advanced-features.png
Attachment php-info.png
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In reply to Wildcat Applications

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

On the environment checks ...
unsupported_db_table_row_format
and
mysql_full_unicode_support

Indicates the DB server not using Barricude file system and
utf8mb4 character set utf8m4_general_ci collaton.

Got ssh?

in moodlecode/admin/cli/ there are two command line scripts that will help

php mysql_compressed_rows.php -i
php mysql_collation.php -l

for info the -i but do read the following:

https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/MySQL_full_unicode_support

Also ,the popup boxes ... got tours turned on?

'spirit of sharing', Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Wildcat Applications -

Ken,

I do intend to sort out the Barracuda issue at some point, but I didn't think that was related to the Undefined boxes? To resolve it I will need to download the database onto my machine run the script and then reupload the database again.

I have tried disabling the two default Boost tours that are installed. I don't seem to be able to delete them. The other option is to try uninstalling the User tours plugin entirely?

Do you have any other suggestions?

I have noticed that some AJAXy things don't seem to work, like clicking on the eye to enabled / disable a tour, or clicking to disable notifications for my user account. Also, whenever I click on the notifications icon in the top right I instantly get a couple of undefined boxes.

Best wishes,

Hugh

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In reply to Wildcat Applications

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Don't delete core code .... hide stuff ... but don't remove!

Don't change multiple things at once ... take it slow ... one at a time.

It's been my experience (in the past) with undefined popup boxes that even with Debugging turned on nothing was reported to provide hint/clue.   Only when I turned off (not deleted) the tours did the un-defined boxes stop.

** Do fix the DB issues ... period ... they could be a factor is such strange behavior. **

I take it you've attempted to turn on debugging ... and cleared not only your browser cache but also purge the server caches.

What do your web service error logs say?   Any clue hint?   Like access denied ... not found ... etc., etc.

Others have reported, and I too have experienced, undefined popup boxes ... no one fix of which am aware.

The fact that Notifications link exhibits same .... something not right (we know that) ... but what?

So debugging on and check apache error logs.

'spirit of sharing', Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Wildcat Applications -

Ken,

Debugging is on, but the only thing I can find in the logs is:


myipaddress mydomain.net - [14/Jun/2018:22:41:26 +0200] "POST /lib/ajax/service.php?sesskey=ea4PlD5Hph&info=message_popup_get_unread_popup_notification_count HTTP/1.1" 403 229 "https://mydomain.net/admin/plugins.php?updatesonly=0&contribonly=1" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0"
myipaddress mydomain.net - [14/Jun/2018:22:41:26 +0200] "POST /lib/ajax/service.php?sesskey=ea4PlD5Hph&info=core_fetch_notifications HTTP/1.1" 403 229 "https://mydomain.net/admin/plugins.php?updatesonly=0&contribonly=1" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0"

Would updating the database to the Barracuda format and to the updated UTF-8 format help with this?

Best wishes,

Hugh

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In reply to Wildcat Applications

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Did you fix DB issues?   May as well do it now.   But don't think those DB issues relate to 403 errors.

The 403 in logs indicate 'access denied'.   Check ownerships/permissions on all folders/files in code and on a folders/files in moodledata.

Code .... readable by all but writable only by owner group readable should be ok - that owner is the web service user.

Data  directory .... needs it all.

'spirit of sharing', Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Wildcat Applications -

Ken,

Thanks very much for your help.

I was able to create a Private SQL server as part of my shared hosting package with OVH, and chose MariaDB 10.2.

Seemingly this uses the Barracuda format by default, as the error is no longer there and running the first php script showed nothing needed changing.

I was able to change the uft format with the other command. In order to do it I had to optimise the mdl_logstore_standard_log table.

I also tried changing all permissions for moodle and moodledata to 705 / 604.

I also stopped showing the Notifications icon in /admin/message.php.

One of these things has stopped the Undefined popups nag, but I am not sure which. I think it may actually have been the utf format change and logstore optimisation!?

Best wishes,

Hugh

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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Undefined boxes in Moodle 3.5!

by Wildcat Applications -

Is there some way to disable web notifications, because that does seem to be what's causing the issue?

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