We are self-hosting a moodle site for our institution and from last week we got complaints from some students that their moodle app isn't connecting or extremely slow loading. when we required them to try connnecting the site using their mobile browser they have the error "this connection is not private"
when we try with some other mobile devices we dont have that issue. we checked the certificates all are good. what maybe the issue?
site: moodle.lbcs.edu.lk
Open the Play Store app
Search for “Android System WebView“
Select Update
If it doesn’t say “Update,” skip this step
Repeat these steps for “Google Chrome“
'on some mobile devices' ... at end of Sept. LetsEncrypt (LE) pulled one of it's root CA's and reportedly affected older androids and apple IOS devices - even if your site doesn't use LE.
So what versions of Android/IOS are those 'some'?
Might be able to tell if your Apache (assuming you run apache) server is logging agents or by viewing ssl_error_logs which do/should provide platform of clients.
The only reason I mention above is the error 'connection is not private' which does relate.
Wouldn't hurt to run SSLabs SSL checker on your own site.
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/
'SoS', Ken
I personally checked a couple of phones. They both run Android 6.0.1
I rand SSLabs SSL checker - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=moodle.lbcs.edu.lk
I dont see a issue there. thanks for the reply.
Uhhh ... you probably shouldn't share that check link to your server here. But .... grade A looks good. And the section on mobile devices looks ok also.
But ... network comes before application (moodle in this case).
Students having problems:
How do they connect to the internet? A. via wireless to local lan which means their access to your moodle is via that provider. B. via wireless not connected to local lan but through the devices carrier.
If those students have a computer and are at home, can they connect? With a computer at home, they could install and use networking tools, like ping/traceroute, to see routes. They could also use Firefox and turn on it's networking tools to see show their access is fairing.
Access to a site is just not Device -> Site ... there are other routers/switches, etc. in between - in network terms 'hops'. Normally. if the number of hops is over 30 ... issues. Packets never return to the device requesting access/interaction.
Also, that error 'connection is not private' .. would also show if there were internal links in the moodle on the front page ... like for an image .. that was recorded in DB as http:// and not https://. So did your moodle recently change from http:// to https://?
So ... bottom line, this sounds like a connectivity issue for some users. Pick a tech savy student that has a computer and who could do things like FireFox, ping, traceroute kinds of things.
Sorry ... no simple answer!
'SoS', Ken
@Ken Task,
I couldnt find a techy student as such but I ran a android silumlator and tested the moodle app and lauched the the site via chrome. The results are the same: for android 7 below our site has the "connection is not private" issue on chrome and won't connect to site via the app. Site works find on Android 7 and on my PC. so, I don't think its a connection issue.
Pls note: the test site one of you sent works fine on those devices. So, there's something from the moodle site I should change? Pls help figure it out. thanks
So you are saying nothing wrong with devices ... proof was using Chrome browser on device and no issue ... is that correct? Chrome browser isn't the Moodle App.
So your server has been running https for how long?
'connection is not private' points to certificate for server. So when you connect to your server via FireFox or Chrome ... not from a device ... the lock icon indicates the cert is ok ... it's not a broken lock icon?
Click the lock and get more info about the secure connection.
Everything OK there?
SOME mobile devices ... is key ... if students are using OLDER Android OS ... or an older IOS version, they will have problems using the moodle mobile app due to certs ... there is nothing you can do inside Moodle to make up for that.
But ... the server I pointed you do uses TLS 1.2 ... exclusively.
What you could try, briefly, to see if this does resolve, change your servers ssl config to use ONLY TLS 1.2
You can always change that back the config of ssl on your server.
'SoS', Ken
Does your DB for the moodle have a table called mdl_user_devices?
Contains the following columns:
Field name Type Allow nulls? Key Default value Extras
id bigint(10) No Primary NULL auto_increment
userid bigint(10) No Indexed 0
appid varchar(128) No None
name varchar(32) No None
model varchar(32) No None
platform varchar(32) No None
version varchar(32) No None
pushid varchar(255) No Indexed
uuid varchar(255) No Indexed
timecreated bigint(10) No None NULL
timemodified bigint(10) No None NULL
You might query that table of your DB to see if devices are registering on your moodle ... and get info on what 'smartphones' they are using.
'SoS', Ken
