File system repo files related activities empty upon restore or import

File system repo files related activities empty upon restore or import

by Louisa van der Linden -
Number of replies: 3

Moodle 3.7.2
Clustered staging environment

I have a course level file system repository linked to course A.

A) I created an activity (X) that uses files from the repo that were inserted with the option "Make a copy of the file"
B) I created an activity (Y) that uses files from the repo that were inserted with the option "Create an alias/copy tot he file"
Both activities also have some text.

I then did a back-up and restore into a brand new course I created. The restored activities (both X and Y) are completely empty. The plain text and the files are missing, only the activity title exists.

For A I expect the backup and restore to work quite well since it's not an alias, but it doesn't work at all.
For B I thought it might be harder since it's a link and some docs say it doesn't always work: https://docs.moodle.org/38/en/Restoring_file_aliases
But I hope B would work since aliases should be able to remain unchanged due to this: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-33430?attachmentViewMode=list

On my second attempt I first created the repo with the same name (linked to the same folder on the repo) in the new course I was restoring to. Also didn't work.
I used both forum and page activities to test.

Please advise since I have a client that just moved all their resources to the file system repo and need to perform restores for every new intake of each course.

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In reply to Louisa van der Linden

Re: File system repo files related activities empty upon restore or import

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
What kind of activity?
In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: File system repo files related activities empty upon restore or import

by Louisa van der Linden -
I tested both options both with forums and pages.
In reply to Louisa van der Linden

Re: File system repo files related activities empty upon restore or import

by Louisa van der Linden -
We also recommended the client use the repository for resource management since they have a lot of resource files. Our recommendation to them is to add files using "Create an alias" and NOT to make a copy since it would duplicate all the repo resources and they'll run out of space very fast. We mounted extra HDD space unto the DB server to cater for all the repo files.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)