Hello everyone,
I'm hoping that you can help me to explain to my IT team what is happening with our Moodle installation. Here are the steps that I have taken so far:
a) I put in a ticket because ever since our Moodle server went up, we periodically get plugins that are "missing from disk". Every plugin that is not part of the original installation goes missing from the disk after about a week. I don't know if it's on a specific day or at a specific time. But it happens at least every week.
I was told to update the plugins to solve the issue. This is because, after you go in, if you upgrade the database and update the plugins, the issue is "solved". Unfortunately, this doesn't stop it from happening again.
So, I mentioned that this issue could not be solved by updating the plugins as it continues to happen. I posted the error that was on the screen:
This page should be using theme fordson which cannot be initialised. Nor can the site theme fordson. Falling back to boost
* line 693 of /lib/outputlib.php: call to debugging()
* line 1551 of /lib/pagelib.php: call to theme_config::load()
* line 1940 of /lib/setuplib.php: call to moodle_page->initialise_theme_and_output()
* line 366 of /login/index.php: call to bootstrap_renderer->__call()
And I also posted screen captures as shown below:
Essentially, every plugin went missing from disk overnight. This has happened multiple times.
b) After the suggestion of just upgrading the Plugins, I replied that this is not normal behavior. According to what I could find online, this only happens when the actual files and folders are deleted from the disk. Yes, pressing "upgrade Moodle Database Now" and then updating the plugins and then restoring any courses that used H5P (as that content is wiped out when the plugin disappears), does "solve" the issue, but it doesn't stop it from happening again. I provided links to forum posts and PDFs from discussions in this forum (as you need an account to see them). I also mentioned that I have a local installation where all of the plugins are working as they should. I left the site "as is" so they could have a look at the errors.
c) I received a reply that asked firstly what I did to produce the error, second, if I went to Site-Admin-Plugins and made sure to install missing/outdated plugins. I was also asked that if I updated the plugins, did the error still occur. I was also told that I could possibly hide the "fordson error" message by disabling display errors. At this point, I am getting a bit frustrated because I had mentioned that the plugins were all up to date and it is clear that hiding the error message will not solve the issue of the plugins disappearing.
d) I responded that everything is up to date. There is no user error (or so I believe). Hiding the error won't help to solve the issue. Everything is functioning fine with Moodle until I log in and receive a "Missing from Disk" error. (This was a very long email with detailed explanations, screenshots, links etc..)
e) The latest response from IT states:
I am about to pull my hair out.
If anyone can empathize with this, is there a way for me to get through to the IT team that none of the solutions presented thus far work, nor would they help this situation.
Thank you for your time