imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Sarah Noah -
Number of replies: 12

Version 3.2.1+ 

I am trying to upload an LTI .imscc file to the course restore section. When I do this, I receive a message that says "The selected file is not a valid Moodle backup file and can't be restored." 

I then backed up several of our course webs as .imscc files and received the same error when I tried to restore them. Additionally, the company that provided the file tested it on their Moodle instance and mentions having a button to convert the .imscc file to a Moodle file. My instance does not have this button/option. Additionally, I cannot find any settings for adding it in on the administrative level. 

Does anyone know if this version had a bug that prevents the .imscc file upload or if there is something that might specifically need to be turned on our fixed on our site to have this option added? Unfortunately, an upgrade is not possible for us until summer. So, here is to hoping that is not the only solution. 

Thanks! 

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In reply to Sarah Noah

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Kelly Wiens -

Version: Moodle Cloud 3.7.2

Sarah, did you ever solve this? I'm getting a similar issue and if there was a way to convert .imscc backup files to .mbz it likely would help me.
If I backup a Moodle course as a .imscc file and download it, it appears to be successful. But when I try to restore that same file, even immediately after backing it up, it warns me as expected:

The selected file is not a standard Moodle backup file. The restore process will try to convert the backup file into the standard format and then restore it.

It then continues to ask me about the Restore Settings (9 of 14 settings were a Red X; checkbox "include activities and resources" was checked ON). The Restore Process succeeds:

The course was restored successfully, clicking the continue button below will take you to view the course you restored.
But the restored course is an empty shell:
    • sad Instead of my custom topic names, they are generically named "Topic 1", "Topic 2", ...
    • smile The topic's summary is still intact, however!
    • sad The topic summary is gone
    • sad most of my Activities and Resources are gone. Moodle Docs lists 6 activities that .imscc will backup and restore, but I got 1-ish unfortunately.
        • Forums: successfully restored at the top course section level only. All forums in sub topics are gone
        • Labels: gone
        • IMS LTI activity (external tool): unknown, I did not use this in my course
        • Page resources: gone
        • Quizzes (partial support): gone
        • URL resources: gone
Thanks, any information will be appreciated!
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In reply to Sarah Noah

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Work Entertainment Point -
Hi
have you solved this error ?
i am getting same error please help me
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In reply to Work Entertainment Point

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Kelly Wiens -
As for me, I have no more info than before. So the best I can do is turn off the Default Backup setting for "imscc" and tell all my users to avoid the imscc‼ I hope you get farther than I did!
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In reply to Work Entertainment Point

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Daniel Berger -

I am also getting the same error. The documentation states that imscc imports are supported, but I've not been able to find more guidance than that.  If someone in the know could confirm that it is/is not still supported, it would save me/us some time. The fact that the IMSCC validator disappeared in November makes me wonder if there is a new way of doing things.

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In reply to Sarah Noah

imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by John Provasnik -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
I dont think an upgrade will fix the issue, I've done the Q&A testing for Moodle 3.9 on this and it still fails. Some vendors actually use common cartridge lite, which doesn't work in Moodle, but I've attempted to upload non-lite versions and would still get an error so I think some Bug Trackers may need to be opened with exact steps to replicate so the community further investigate. You can submit one by clicking the "Tracker" link up in the menu bar.
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In reply to Sarah Noah

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by John Provasnik -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Ok, a good tracker to follow about this situation is here: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-68805
Certain IMSCC files are support and other are not (yet).
I've just successfully restored a version 1.1, and just failed a restore of a version 1.0
Attachment success.png
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In reply to John Provasnik

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Greg Brooks-English -

Hey, there.

My university after nine years has finally mandated that we move to its Moodle platform, so I exported my classes from NEO LMS (CypherLearning.com) into an imscc (CCF) 1.2 version format and was unsuccessful in importing them to Moodle using Restore. Additionally, thanks to this thread (thanks, everyone!) I just became aware that Moodle does not support imscc 1.2 or 1.3, but just 1.0 and 1.1. It just boggles my mind that anyone using an LMS that exports in 1.2 cannot import into Moodle. I'm asking myself, "How can the Moodle community allow this state of affairs to have dragged on since 2018 - or possibly even longer?" "What does this mean for the future of Moodle itself?"

I'm sitting in front of my computer reflecting on just how much work it is going to take to two-screen copy & paste my class into Moodle over the next weeks.

Super frustrated and disillusioned with Moodle already...

Is there anything I can do to convert my imscc 1.2 file into imscc 1.1 or 1.0?

Open to suggestions and help,

Greg

Attachment Screen Shot 2021-03-09 at 1.43.22 PM.png
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In reply to Greg Brooks-English

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Hi Greg!

I feel your pain! - I've been through a few of these sorts of projects myself (and supported a lot of our clients through similar projects)

as you might have seen above - implementing IMSCC 1.2 would be quite a signficant chunk of work and the cost vs benefit is sometimes hard to justify - in fact, in many cases it's cheaper to pay a few students to manually migrate content from the old LMS to the new one and you often end up with a much higher quality course with a manual migration.

Usually these automated migrations require a massive amount of tidy up work after the restore anyway - I remember when we were doing this for Webct -> Moodle many years ago - we found that the time saved using an import tool was quite minimal because you then had to spend a chunk of time re-organising the content in your course anyway.

What might help is if you explain the types of content you have in your old course as we might be able to suggest some things that might help speed up the process for you!

Moodle does support drag/drop of a number of different content types - so if you have files/images/scorm zips you can just turn editing on in the course and then just drag the files on top of the course hompage - if you have quizzes in your old LMS there are posssibly other ways available to import your question banks too.

good luck!
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In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Greg Brooks-English -
Dan! Damn it's nice to get some empathy, if not much else. Thanks for feeling my pain, and the bigger picture view that manual imports are sometimes better than a converter due to misformatting issues. I was not aware of that and doing a manual transfer is not quite as intimidating. Also, the idea to get my TA involved was also helpful, but I think she'd be incredibly inefficient not being familiar with NEO LMS.

Here is a screenshot of the types of content my classes usually have:

Quizzes
Surveys
Discussion Boards/Forums
Team Project Assignments 
Essays (students submit written work by copying and pasting from MS Word or upload files)

I'm curious if there is a program that could open my ismcc 1.2 files so I can access files/images/scorm zips... Any idea on that? And is there program that could open my class and allow me actually interact with my classes independent of my previous LMS - NEO LMS. Any idea?

NEO LMS does not permit the export of anything except the entire class in CCF 1.2; they are great on import (both Moodle and Blackboard!), but don't make it easy to export out of their system (It's the Hotel California! You can never leave!).

I think one thing I'm appreciating about Moodle immediately on going all-in on it is that there is a community of people who care about each other and it's not about the money, but solidarity and sharing. We need more of this in the world.

Cheers,

Greg
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In reply to Greg Brooks-English

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Hello Greg. Sorry I can't help with your problem as this isn't my field of expertise but I had to come and thank you for your great compliment "I think one thing I'm appreciating about Moodle immediately on going all-in on it is that there is a community of people who care about each other and it's not about the money, but solidarity and sharing. We need more of this in the world."
I wish we could shout that louder smile
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In reply to Greg Brooks-English

Re: imscc Common Cartridge File Not Importing, No Option to Convert File

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Imscc is just a custom zip format - rename the file to .zip instead of. Imscc (or whatever it's extension is) and then open it like a normal zip.

Your files/images/scorm packages shouldn't be too hard to find.

For the quizzes have a look to see if you can export them specifically in any other formats from your old lms.
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