Status 404 errors in the web server log

Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Rod Spears -
Number of replies: 6

We get a report every morning that shows errors reported in our web server logs. Our site is hosted on a Windows server IIS 8.x. Each day we are seeing 30-40 404 errors related to scorm/datamodel.php. Here is an example of the full error message:

2019-10-13 15:44:04 xxx.xxx.x.xx GET /mod/scorm/datamodel.php scoid=9486&attempt=1&id=25271 443 - xxx.xxx.xx.xx Mozilla/5.0+(X11;+CrOS+x86_64+12371.75.0)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/77.0.3865.105+Safari/537.36 https%3a//xxx.xxxxx.org/mod/scorm/player.php%3fa%3d4567%26currentorg%3dPKG02_Language_PROD_ORG%26scoid%3d9486 404 0 0 559

I have been working with our server support team to understand these errors. Based on that research it looks like the SCORM attempt is attempting to GET the /mod/scorm/datamodel.php file and it is not able to do so. We know that there should be a ? after the file name, but that ? does not appear in our logs. 

We need help to understand how this works. Doesn't the scorm player need to access the datamodel.php file in order to communicate properly with the Moodle database?

Many of our users submit Help Tickets telling us that their work is not being saved properly sometimes and they have to repeat the attempt several times before they get credit for the work. In these cases, we may have had 100s of users who have completed these attempts without reporting problems. 

Could these errors be related to problems with the attempt saving all the users data? 

Or do they mean anything at all? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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In reply to Rod Spears

Re: Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Rod Spears -

Just wondering if my question is either too simple to post here, too difficult or ....... maybe no one is familiar with hosting via IIS 8. 

Is there a better place to post the question? I have been supporting clients that use SCORM activities for over 10 years and so many of the problems that our users report are still a mystery to me. 

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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In reply to Rod Spears

Re: Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Rod Spears -
Hello everyone! Did I ask this question in the wrong forum? Should I move it to the Developers forum?
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In reply to Rod Spears

Re: Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

No, you didn't ask it on the wrong forum. Maybe no one really has an answer for you? Or Dan, who knows everything there is to know about SCORM, didn't see it?

Here are my two cents...I know practically nothing about GET, Servers, web service errors or any of the things you are properly asking about. But I do know a little about SCORM weirdness having been doing SCORM stuff for 10 years...

10 years! And I've managed to learn nothing about that other technical stuff! Cause for celebration!

That's not what you wanted to hear about...so here goes:

Sometimes, when your system has a time out, if a user starts a SCORM and then stops and doesn't do anything (they walk away to use the facilities and get side tracked, etc) for the time out period and then resume, it will look like they complete but then they have to start where they left off when they walked away...because it timed them out and the scorm content doesn't warn you that you've timed out and it is no longer conversing with Moodle. Like a dropped phone call. Just talking (or sending data) doesn't restore communication line. That happens all the time for me.

Sometimes, SCORM modules are not set up in such a way to report properly--either in Moodle or in whatever authoring tool you use.

  • Camtasia publishes scorm modules. Before the newest (2019) version, it would not 'bookmark' and if you closed and came back, it would start back at the beginning. Very irritation.
  • Captivate sometimes is weird. In the old days, about 5 percent of all my users had trouble completing. I don't see that as much now...def not 5% of the time anymore. I had 5000 users back then and that meant...argh! math!...250? users had a problem. Unacceptable. But generally errors of that type are user error these days (and by that I mean SCORM designer)...
  • If you force completion, it might make them start over. I never use that setting.
  • Teachers have to have a student role to get credit...if you add the role, it should remember the participation (unlike quiz, which saves Teacher stuff as preview unless specifically directed).
  • You might check the completion criteria, sometimes the criteria between the activity module and the actual package aren't speaking the same language and then it gets weird...completions can happen but the circumstances have to be just right or there has to be a  blue moon...

What authoring do you use?

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In reply to Melanie Scott

Re: Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Rod Spears -
Thank you Melanie. Our older modules were created with Lectora and we only have access to an older version of Lectora when we need to make changes to those modules. We do plan to re-create them using the software that we do have a license for. Our current license is for Articulate Storyline 360 so that is what we use now. We have also used Rise recently.

I can relate to the issues you described. We have tried to replicate some of the errors that we see, but that has been difficult. When using the most current versions of Moodle the user does get a warning when they have an unstable network connection. A warning message pops up. That is a very useful feature IF the users pay attention to it and log out. Many of them ignore it and keep working. Then they wonder why their work was not "saved". During my testing I have found that sometimes the work is saved when you ignore the warning and sometimes it is not. Haven't been able to pinpoint why this happens. Right now we are thinking that it must depend on the properties of that particular module. It appears that some modules download just about all the content to the browser when it is launched and some do not because many of the modules will keep playing when there is no network connection and some will not. It also depends on the type of content.

The reason we are interested in learning more about the causes of these errors is because even though some problems are reported to the Help Desk, we don't think they all are. Some will just repeat it many times until it works correctly and some will just give up and not complete the course.

All we can do about user error is to educate the users and hope that they will not do things like start an attempt, leave their computer for long periods of time and then return expecting to just continue where they left off. Our site has a 4 hour timeout setting. So a person would have to leave it open a long time. However, that does not appear to be the cause of most of these errors. I have set the timeout to be a very short period of time on our DEV site and in most cases the user is not logged out when the timeout period is over because the module pings the server very often and that activity appears to keep the user logged in.

The 404 errors do seem to have some type of relationship with that timeout though. I have launched an attempt and pulled the network cable with the Chrome Inspector open so I can see the network activity. When I reconnect it after only a minute it usually causes no problems, but if there is no network connection for longer than that it will produce a 404 error and loses the session key.

We need to know what the cause is so we can either
1. Educate the users
2. If the errors are caused by the modules, then we want to correct them so our users are able to complete the courses with no problems.
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In reply to Rod Spears

Re: Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Weird. I used to use Lectora...from '08- early '18 and never had a problem (except with the newer version with anchors, which break on some mobile devices). Of course, I was using an older version of Moodle, too. But old versions of scorms sometimes need a tune up (just an open, repub, etc) and if you don't have it any more...

I do not envy you the necessity of rebuilding in a new product. When we did have errors, it was really hard to track...my current job we don't have those problems (so far...just packages creating network errors because they are so bulky and people not following directions).

There is a thing with a suspend data limit in SCORM settings...I unchecked the box and the problems stopped. Dan's directions were here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=359410.

Educating users is probably the best bet but that can be frustrating...


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In reply to Rod Spears

Re: Status 404 errors in the web server log

by Rod Spears -

Does anyone have any ideas about these 404 errors?

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