I'm relatively new at running my own Moodle site but had no issues all last semester. Up until yesterday, my students were able to upload their assignments on my site. I suspect something changed on the ISP service side because when I logged in on my home network as one of my student, I was able to upload a test assignment but tried from all the browsers at work and wasn't able to upload. I kept getting server connection error.
running Moodle version 2.6.1 build 20140220
Any ideas?
Difficult to tell given the information shared so far. So let's begin with what does "server connection error" look like? Screen shot or clip of text you see would help.
Trying to determine if it is a Moodle error or a networking error.
And ... am certain you get the Moodle server 'nags' (notificatons sent by your moodle to admins) about newer version of Moodle is available ... the version of Moodle you are running is very old and no longer getting any fixes/patches etc. for anything. Consider/investigate upgrading the moodle.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Thanks so much for your reply Ken,
I realize I don't have a lot of info primarily b/c I can't seem to isolate the problem other than between my personal mac and my work PC.
I'll poke around and try to figure out how to load the more recent version. I checked with another colleague who is also experiencing the same error that just started last night and I don't think we're running the same versions.
I'll try to update to a more current version and see if the problem persists.
Thanks again.
Jess
Yup, I'm the colleague, and I posted https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=381454.
We have the same issue, but given that we have slightly different configs (and we are both hosting our own moodle instances), we might have different solutions, but I bet not. The errors came at the exact same time, and we've both used Moodle in the past. We also didn't change our configs much prior to the error.
Just to add some additional info, I have Moodle 3.5 (Build: 20180517). same errors as Jess.
"The errors came at the exact same time" ...
is your server and Jess's server on the same physical network?
and do they both have the same top level domain ... like jessesserver.toplevel.domain ... and yours ericsserver.sametoplevel.samedomain
"they try to upload using the school network (wifi or hardline), it doesn't work"
But, your test at home using a students account ... different physical network and probably coming to your server via some 'front door' (PC or Mac) no issues.
There is one setting in Moodles for restricting to an IP range ... doubt that y'all would have that.
More info ... server platform is? Are either of you true server admins or are you only Moodle admins? Operating systems have firewalls. Your servers? Are your servers in an internal private IP network ... you can see such access by looking at Moodle server logs ... in the Moodle Admin UX. Last column .. shows IP address.
Have y'all checked with network services dept at school about any changes recently made to the network? Uhhh ... ask nicely, they are a sensitive bunch!
?????
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi Ken,
Thanks so much for continuing to help us figure this out.
is your server and Jess's server on the same physical network?
No. we're on different servers. I'm on HostGator and it's external to the school's network servers.
Are either of you true server admins or are you only Moodle admins?
Neither of us has access to the server our students are on. Speaking for self, I'm admin on my Moodle site only.
Jess
Hostgator is in the 'cloud' ... with those servers (like all cloud servers) they are normally opened to too much and the provider or server admins have to work on protecting.
And what of Erin's server? Same hosting?
This still involves networking ... and primarily when students are on the school network. Is the school network a 'lower education' ... K12? ... or a junior college/uni? School networks (at least here in Texas and US) are to provide filtering ... for student safety/protection - that's both in workstation/device browsers and in servers hosted internally.
The filtering at your school might be done automatically ... there is a network proxy ... unseen and not configurable by individual student workstations/devices. That filtering may have picked up on the IP address of your server on HostGator as being something not to be trusted. Thus certain actions ... like uploading to or downloading from ... is trapped by a rule of some sort.
Is your moodle server running https:// with a valid certificate from a Certificate of Authority ... think HostGator provides that as a service and is default.
Users at home don't normally have such setups ... although providers might use Open DNS resolvers which protects customers from errant URL entry in browsers.
Again ... you will have to talk to your network people at school ... anything ... ANYTHING ... I happen to suggest might be way off! No Vulcan Mind Meld possible!
'spirit of sharing', Ken