Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -
Number of replies: 18

Hi, I'm a complete newbie to Moodle and the installation process. I'm currently getting this error. 

"Your database uses Antelope as the file format. Full UTF-8 support in MySQL and MariaDB requires the Barracuda file format. Please switch to the Barracuda file format. See the documentation MySQL full unicode support for details."

There are 2 others but this is the only one in red which I assume means it needs attention (I can't get past this.

I've contacted my shared host and they've given me a command to convert tables to Barracuda but at present the database doesn't have any tables to convert. 

I've seen various things about changing the db format to utf8 (which I've done) and adding code to the 'my.cnf' file but I can't find this. 

Does anyone have any ideas?!

Thanks in advance and apologies for my lack of knowledge!

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

How did you create the database? Did you specify the charset as 'utf8mb4'. If you're not bothered about the extended character support try just 'utf8' and collation 'utf8_unicode_ci'.

Oh... and moving to Installation forum...

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

Thanks!

I just created the db using the standard tools my host supplies. The only options initially are MariaDB 10.1 or MSSQL 2014 (I used MariaDB).

I did have it set as utf8mb4 (under the 'Operations' tab) in PHPMyAdmin but I've just realised that's for collation only. Is there somewhere separate I need to change it to affect the database as a whole? Any change I make here is still giving the same error when I reload the installation page. 



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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Leon Stringer -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

The collation setting in phpMyAdmin covers both the collation and character encoding so you only need to set this here when creating the database.

If you're using Antelope and can't change this to Barracuda as recommended then you must create the Moodle database manually before starting the install with the utf8_unicode_ci collation.

But if you've already attempted an install and Moodle has created config.php in the Moodle source code folder you may need to either remove this or alter it as described in this post.

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In reply to Leon Stringer

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

Thanks, I can do that – it's just a case now of whether my host will allow me to set up the database correctly in the first place. I'll look into that!

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Femi Fadeyi -

Hi Miller, i could really use some advance help upgrading my Moodle site. i have had to restore to an older version for the 3rd attempt to upgrade to Moodle 3.6. i don't have any development experience, so i am finding this pretty difficult. Hoping for a favorable response.

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In reply to Femi Fadeyi

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Please start you own post and explain exactly what problems you are having instead of hijacking someone elses!!

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Ludovic ORNON -

Hello Jon,

For an installation, I think I would create a new database that is compliant with Moodle requirements from the start. I changed host because my previous shared host could not provide the adequate level for the dB, php, etc.

It is important to read the prerequisites to be sure that the installation will be possible and the upgrade too.

In my opinion scripted installations are only for quickly test but even for that the version installed can be very old and so not so useful.

My 2 cents,

Ludovic

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In reply to Ludovic ORNON

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

Thanks, I did wonder if I just need to try a new host but tech support did assure me they've got people running Moodle on their server so it looks like it should be possible.

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In reply to Ludovic ORNON

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

...mb4 is indeed an option. You, will, however need to create the database manually if you don't want to (or can't) use it. 

All you lose is the ability to have emojis in text

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

I could live with that!

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

I add the following line to my.cnf.

innodb_file_format=Barracuda

It's been a while since I converted to Barracuda, so there might be a few more things that you need to do.  It appears that you have found some documentation.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

Sorry to be a bit thick but where is the my.cnf file?

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

It's on your server, and it is the configuration file for MySQL.

Its location varies.  For example, on my server it is in /etc/ .

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

Ah OK, I'm on a shared server and I don't know if I have access to that level of file. I'll get in touch with my hosts again.

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Jon, I am not a "server-type" guy.  I am advising you based upon my own experience with these things.  There may be many ways to accomplish what you seek to do.  Also, this conversion to "Barracuda" happened a while ago, so my memory of it is dwindling.  In general, many of the low-cost shared hosting environments do not support Barracuda.

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Leon Stringer -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

To edit /etc/my.cnf (or wherever this is on the server) you'll need to either be logged in as root or have that level of access, e.g. with sudo. You'll need to configure the innodb_file_format, innodb_file_per_table and innodb_large_prefix settings as shown in the documentation. Once you've changed these settings you need to restart the MySQL (or MariaDB) service which also needs root access.

You can change these three settings on the fly by running the following commands in the MySQL shell or in phpMyAdmin:

SET GLOBAL innodb_file_format = 'Barracuda';
SET GLOBAL innodb_file_per_table = 1;
SET GLOBAL innodb_large_prefix = 1;

These commands need sufficient privileges with MySQL (or MariaDB), normally this means that you're accessing the MySQL shell or phpMyAdmin as the MySQL root user. Note that these settings will revert to their original values when MySQL or the server is restarted unless the configuration file is update too.

If you're using a shared/managed host then it's unlikely that root access will be available for either of the above.
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In reply to Leon Stringer

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Jon Bradley -

Thanks for this. I'm not sure I've got the right level of access on the shared server so it looks like I'm going to have to find an alternative host for this job.

Any recommendations?

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In reply to Jon Bradley

Re: Problems installing Moodle 3.6 (Build: 20181203)

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Just yesterday, over in this discussion, https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=379667#p1530952, I learned that if you get MariaDB 10.2 that you might not need to worry about this Barracuda issue.  I found this interesting, and haven't pursued it to know more.  I run a VPS, but I still would like to know how folks can run Moodle on a low-cost hosted server.

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