HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Number of replies: 18
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Hi there,

I'm desperate: whatever I try, I don't manage to get a fresh version of Moodle 3.8 installed.

Here's my current site: https://integraleimpulse.de ~ running fine, but when I change the theme to 'classic' (or the freshly installed fordson theme) I get the same appearance problems as described below!!

So I created a subfolder structure:

dev
dev/moodle
dev/moodledata

and redirected http://dev.integraleimpulse.de > / dev/moodle

Uploaded the most recent moodle.zip and extracted to /moodle

Ran the installation script (fresh database, the above moodledata dir) - all without any error messages - and in the end it looks like this:

https://nimb.ws/6jlY0u

Same appearance (no theme, CSS problems?) when I switch my main site to another theme than boost.

What I don't get: complete new installation, new dirs, new database, even installed from a different browser session!

What's going wrong? How can I install a new Moodle with working themes??

If that would be running, I'd like to migrate my courses via backup / restore from the installation with the theme problems (I'd like to switch so fordson).


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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Clear browser cache and cookies for dev site in browser.

Without having logged on first, go directly to:

devsite/admin/purgecaches.php

You will be asked to login and then redirected to purging caches.

After that has run, suggest setting the cookie prefix for the DEV site as you will be admin in both sites and without changing dev's cookie prefix you might get some strange behaviors if working in both sites as admin level.

'SoS', Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Hey Ken,

thx for your tips!

I did all you suggested, even set a different prefix for both sites. But (as I expected because I was using two different browsers (Chrome and Firefox), nothing changed. traurig

Any other ideas?

(desperate) Stefan
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
And (after thinking about what your suggestion implies):

How comes the effect is already showing up while I was installing a completley fresh moodle?
Can the installation be effected by the cookie-problem?

Stefan
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Don't have Vulcan Mind Meld ability sooo ...

Check ownerships/permissions on dev's moodledata.

So you went to url direct: http://dev..../admin/purgecaches.php

and that didn't 'fix' it?

Then time to get nasty ... in the moodledata directory for the **dev** site, manually remove the contents ... that's contents ...  of 'cache' and 'localcache' directories with whatever you have to browse files.

Safe to manually remove those as moodles will re-populate them on usage of the site.

Next step is to use FireFox Tools and console to see what might not be loading.

And finally/also turn on debugging to max.

'SoS', Ken

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In reply to Ken Task

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Cleared the cachedirs: no difference.

Chrome Inspect says:
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error)
(index):1 A cookie associated with a cross-site resource at http://ext-affiliate.com/ was set without the `SameSite` attribute. A future release of Chrome will only deliver cookies with cross-site requests if they are set with `SameSite=None` and `Secure`. You can review cookies in developer tools under Application>Storage>Cookies and see more details at https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5088147346030592 and https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5633521622188032.

Firefox doesn't report any error.
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Moodle has no code for that cross-site resource at reference.

Am using FireFox tools:

Getting error 500 on:

http://dev.integraleimpulse.de/theme/styles_debug.php?theme=classic&type=scss

Set the theme via config.php file:

$CFG->theme='boost';

Anyway for you to use a cert with dev site?

Your main site is using LetsEncrypt.

Please see:

https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-can-i-add-more-subdomains-to-my-ssl-certificate/33711

'SoS', Ken


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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

The dev site is really a virtual apache and therefore needs it's own config files.

Assuming Linux Standards Base (LSB) linux OS ... Ubuntu or CentOS 7 ... what do you have in:

/etc/httpd/sites-available

is there a file for dev.integraleimpulse.de?

apachectl -t

will check for syntax issues in config files.

apachectl -S

will check virtual host configurations.

dev can have it's own ssl.conf file which means it can have its own letsencrypt cert by the dev.integraleimpulse.de domain.

'SoS', Ken

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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Hi @all,

thank you so much for your effort to help!

Something is still really odd here!! sad

I tried a completely fresh installation again - same result.

Here's what I did:
- created /dev directory
- mapped dev.integraleimpulse.de to /dev/moodle
- installed SSL certificate for dev.integraleimpulse.de
- emptied the SQL database (deleted all tables and content)
- extracted the latest moodle.zip (freshly downloaded) into /dev/moodle
- ran the installation script: Firefox, all Cookies and webdata deleted prior to install
- all installation steps without any error messages (see screenshots)
- result: same as before! traurig

What the hell is going on here? 😳
Am I making a mistake?
something wrong with my server?
something wrong with the installation script?

What else could I try?

Problem is: 
on my main site (integraleimpulse.de) I have the same problem (site looks the same) whenever I switch from boost to classic or fordson. Currently the only theme working is boost. So there seems to be some hidden problem too and I'd really like to switch to a new and clean Installation.
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
I tried to make sense out of the debugging information in FireFox.
There seems to be a problem loading the theme / style: FireFox says, 'style document could not be loaded. https://dev.integraleimpulse.de/theme/styles.php/boost/1575887476_1/all

Line:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://dev.integraleimpulse.de/theme/styles.php/boost/1575835076_1/all">

On my other site, the corresponding line looks a little different:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://integraleimpulse.de/theme/styles.php/boost/1575835074_1/all">

How do we make sense of this?? 🤔
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

In the initial 3.8.x install (zip or git) there is no 'fordson' theme.  That theme is an addon.

If you want to use that theme install **compatible** version from:

https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=theme_fordson

Switching theme from the GUI Admin has a 'purge' link ... even if you don't do it there can purge via 3 other ways:

Via URL: site/admin/purgecaches.php

Via CLI: site/admin/cli/purge_caches.php

via manually removing contents of moodledata/cache/ and moodledata/localcache/

Theme issues often have problems due to other addons ... blocks, mods, whatever.  Have any additionally installed addon block/mod/whatever?

If having issues with Fordson, there is a theme forum or you could contact theme developer/maintainer from the same link provided above for Fordson:

https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=theme_fordson

'SoS', Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Problem solved!! 👏

It was none of the above suspected issues. Simply too little memory (max 96MB) on my server. Increased it to max 384MB (after checking in with my provider) changing themes now works on both of my sites.

Thank you all so much für offering your expertise and help!!! 🙏

Stefan
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem [SOLVED]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

So the cause was in a completely unexpected corner. Now how should I understand this 96 MB limit? It is not Site administration > Server > Performance: Extra PHP memory limit, right? Then what is it? It is something imposed by your (shared) hosting provider?

Does the theme make a difference? I mean, Boost would work with this limit, Fordson won't?
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem [SOLVED]

by Chamika Ranasinghe -
yes , memory limitation can make many errors .

https://docs.moodle.org/38/en/PHP

For my case i refer above URL and change my setting accordingly .

Thanks
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Chamika Ranasinghe

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem [SOLVED]

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Great documentation, Thx for the link!
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem [SOLVED]

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
It's a setting that I can change from the 'expert settings / server settings' that I can do from the tool my provider (Alfa Hosting Germany) provides.
The setting is called 'memory_limit', it was a tip the support guy gave me.
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In reply to Stefan Schoch

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem [SOLVED]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
So it is not a setting in Moodle rather something your provider imposed on your hosting package. Then can't discuss it.

Still curious whether when the memory was restricted, Boost worked but Fordson not. May be too late to ask that, since your package now has been allocated more memory.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: HELP!! - can't get Moodle 3.8 installed: theme problem [SOLVED]

by Stefan Schoch -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Sorry I missed this part of your question.

For quite a while I had the strange situation on my main site that boost was working fine but whenever I switched to classic, I had the same corrupt page display. So I decided to give it a try to start completely fresh with an new installation (assuming something with my installation was wrong). Same effect: boost working fine, neither classic nor the (additionally installed) fordson.

After increasing the memory_limit on both installations all themes are working fine now!
So it seems boost needs less memory than classic or fordson.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)