critical error in my recently updated Moodle 3.5

critical error in my recently updated Moodle 3.5

by james mergenthaler -
Number of replies: 2

Last week, I upgraded my moodle to 3.5 and have since been seeing this very disruptive error about every other day.  The error pops up in a message box and does not allow the user to continue.   They contact me and If I reset the Apache service, it clears it up, at least for a while.


This is the message that pops up in the moodle


MissingParam

A required parameter (sesskey) was missing


It looks like this error, only says (sesskey) not username

error message text in a little window


In my php_error log, I find this message, which is very similar to the one that shows up in the moodle.


[12-Jun-2018 15:01:25 America/New_York] Default exception handler: A required parameter (sesskey) was missing Debug: 

Error code: missingparam

* line 482 of \lib\setuplib.php: moodle_exception thrown

* line 573 of \lib\moodlelib.php: call to print_error()

* line 73 of \lib\sessionlib.php: call to required_param()

* line 32 of \lib\ajax\setuserpref.php: call to confirm_sesskey()


In my Apache error log, I see this.

a bunch of NUL values followed by the system cannot find the path specified.


NUL NUL NUL NUL ... 

The system cannot find the path specified.


I searched in the moodle admin settings and found a gost script path that does not exist in my install that could be responsible?

a setting in the moodle for a script


I am using WAMP 3.1 (Apache 2.4.27, PHP 7.1.9, MySQL 5.7.19) running on Windows server 2008.


Please help.  Any ideas? Moodle tweaks? PHP or Apache tweaks?


Thank you

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In reply to james mergenthaler

Re: critical error in my recently updated Moodle 3.5

by james mergenthaler -

Well, Once I downloaded and installed the Ghostscript software and configured moodle system path to find it, it stopped blowing up my Apache error log and subsequently the disruptive Apache error.  

Moodle is sitting on 64 bit Windows OS, downloaded the script from here

https://www.ghostscript.com/download/gsdnld.html

Installed on  server directly off the root, \gs\gs9.23\bin\ (not NOT in program files - not like the space)

edited each of the moodle sites on the server, adding the correct path to the ghostscript executable.

a picture of a moodle system path setting for ghostscript


Thanks

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In reply to james mergenthaler

Re: critical error in my recently updated Moodle 3.5

by james mergenthaler -

Incidentally, this is the first time I ever noticed the System Path Ghostscript setting 

I have been supporting Moodle in Windows environment for many years and versions...and have not configured this software prior to the moodle 3.5 version without issue - meaning not writing the invalid path over and over to the Apache log causing the service to fail.

Problem desc:  Moodle writing "path not found" error over and over to the apache log and then eventually the service failing.

I even tried initially just removing the default path that was in the setting - it changed the error in the apache log, which clued me into the right track for resolution.  I was simply looking around the moodle for anything that may have been contributing to this nasty behavior.

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