Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Andrew Uyeno -
Počet odpovědí: 11

Both today and last time I tried to send a student messages through Moodle, I got confusing error messages. 

The student did confirm that the messages were delivered. The student was able to respond.


The first error message:





After X-ing that out, came the second error message:





How can basic text messaging glitch like this in the year 2022?!?

Is there something I can or need to do to ensure text messaging just works?

I like the idea of Moodle, but after dealing with nonsense here AND nonsense when posting an assignment AND nonsense when typing a list, I'm concerned that Moodle's core features have tons of annoying bugs that I have yet to discover. I'm further concerned that these bugs will exist for many years (like the bugs of Windows, MS Office, Evernote, etc.) because it's more fun to add a new feature than it is to fix an old core feature.

If that is true, I need to consider switching platforms because I love reliability and I hate bugs.

What do you think about both this messaging issue and the bugginess of Moodle generally?

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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Mark Johnson -
Obrázek: Core developers Obrázek: Particularly helpful Moodlers Obrázek: Peer reviewers Obrázek: Plugin developers

Are you able to reliably reproduce this bug? Can you reproduce it on a standard Moodle site like https://school.moodledemo.net? If you can only reproduce it on your own site, consider whether you have any additional plugins installed that may be causing the issue. Filters seem like a possible culprit, but I can't really say for sure.

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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Andrew Uyeno -
I will try to reproduce it. This bug happened on Sunday and then again on Wednesday, with different student users.

As for plugins, I have installed no extra plug ins. I don't even know what a filter is. So, I don't think those are the root cause of the problem unless there is some kind of default plug in or filter that I'm not aware of.
Průměr hodnocení: Useful (1)
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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Mark Johnson -
Obrázek: Core developers Obrázek: Particularly helpful Moodlers Obrázek: Peer reviewers Obrázek: Plugin developers

Hi Andrew, That's good, if you don't have any extra plugins its more likely to be a bug in core that can be fixed. I would suggest opening an issue on tracker.moodle.org with steps to reproduce the problem.

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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Andrew Uyeno -
Ok, will do!

How good are Moodle developers at acknowledging and fixing bugs reported on their tracker?
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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Obrázek: Documentation writers Obrázek: Testers
Hello Andrew - one of the problems with your particular error is that it is very difficult to reproduce - it comes and goes if you know what I mean - and so the developers have nothing to work with. The bug has been reported before here MDL-69692 but was closed after it was impossible to reproduce. So if you decide to report it then please mention this tracker issue when creating your new report. (And notice that here is *not* a case of 'how good Moodle developers are at acknowledging and fixing errors' but at it being hard to fix when you cannot consistently reproduce it.
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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Melanie Scott -
"If that is true, I need to consider switching platforms because I love reliability and I hate bugs.

What do you think about both this messaging issue and the bugginess of Moodle generally?"

It is not indicative of general bugginess. Most issues I've seen are related to installation, settings and users. I ran a site for 10 years with no messaging issues. I run a site now that is really weird with messaging--but the server set ups/background admins have very different approaches to server and installation and firewalls, etc.

If my current site was my first, I would suspect Moodle. But it isn't...I suspect our network set up instead. Seventeen years and counting in Moodle--mostly, it does what you tell it to and if you get errors, you told it to always do something that contradicts what you just asked for. Not always (there are glitches, just like with any program) but it is pretty good at doing what you tell it. Doing what you want? Well, yes, if your instructions are good.

There are newer things within Moodle that can interfere with old things, the shift from UTF8 to UTF8mb4, for example, can mess stuff up if you don't do it right. I don't know what these mean functionally, only that Moodle 4 likes UTF8mb4 and we used to have UTF8 and now things that are used for one glitch of the other is present--or the other way around? IDK, when I say I don't know what these mean...really, I have no idea what these two things are, I just know what errors I see--I run front end, I don't program, I don't server... I (and some of my content developers) get json script errors all the time when I'm remote. I come to the office, script error disappears--that's not Moodle, that's my network. I know enough to be very, very dangerous but that's generally it. The key, I think is to know what things do and what your set up says and to make sure they don't conflict.

Is this messaging thing a bug? Maybe. If you can duplicate it in other places, probably. Can it be resolved if it is? Absolutely.
Průměr hodnocení: Useful (3)
V odpovědi na Melanie Scott

Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Andrew Uyeno -
Hi Melanie,

Thank you for your response. I'm glad to hear Moodle normally works.

"The key, I think is to know what things do and what your set up says and to make sure they don't conflict."

How does one learn the basics of these things?

I have not been able to replicate the messaging error, but I will try again with one of the same students tomorrow.
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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Marcus Green -
Obrázek: Core developers Obrázek: Particularly helpful Moodlers Obrázek: Plugin developers Obrázek: Testers
"How does one learn the basics of these things?"
It's difficult and complex, it might be one of many variables, e.g. the load on the server at the time the error happened, might be a factor and what plugins are enabled. For example Moodle ships with some filter plugins that transform text and they might be the underlying cause.

I am a full time Moodle developer and if I cannot reproduce a problem there is not point it trying to work on it, because if I change something I won't know if I have fixed it. That may seem like stating the obvious, but it is a conversation I have had many times. Looking at that ticket I suspect people have spent a lot of time trying to reproduce it without success.

Moodle ships with a huge amount of automated tests that are run constantly to check for bugs, or perhaps more precisely to check if new code has introduced or brought back old bugs. Each new release brings more tests but it is not possible to test for every possibility. I know that over then next few years there is likely to be a considerable amount of work don't on the Moodle messaging subsystems that should bring all sorts of improvements, but this sort of development always takes time. Do post here if you are able to reliably reproduce the issue. As someone who has a tiny amount of code in Core Moodle and who has attempted to get more in I can assure you that the standards of code required to get into the core product is very high.
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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Melanie Scott -
  • Practice.
  • Making huge mistakes (like locking all admins out or their accounts). 
  • Creating test courses and trying out different things. 
  • Reading all the documentation. 
  • I compiled all the relevant Moodle documentation from this site for my agency and edited it into a huge users manual (2.3) that printed to...425 pages. When I did this, I read all the instructions and tested them. I added stuff for clarity. I removed stuff that my staff didn't need. That helped me learn, too.
  • Ask questions. If you don't know what something means or you think you know what it means but the effect doesn't match what you expect, ask. Be active in the community. I've found answering questions can teach me as much as I help others learn because I'm looking at other use cases.
  • Go to Moots. I'm a Moodle admin and have been for 14 years. I go to moots whenever possible and learn something every time. Sometimes it isn't what the presenter is discussing--sometimes it is ideas that apply in multiple places. Martin was doing a Keynote for the Mountain moot in July. He mentioned the updates to Database. I don't care about Database. I don't use it. I have not found a use for it in my job. But I was struggling with a way to allow people to request accounts instead of letting them create them...his discussion about Database made me think about other ways to do things and by the end of his presentation, I had a workable solution. I just wasn't looking at the problem in the right way. Are there other options? I'm sure there are. There are generally two or three ways to do just about anything in Moodle. One of the things I like about it--and Moots are a good way to find them.
  • Ask questions to staff. Make sure you know what use cases you are working with. Find out the what-ifs. Get crazy, 

Does this sound like a lot of time, effort, and work? YUP. It is. But it is worth it. Do I know everything about Moodle? No. I learn new things all the time. I have a good foundation, though. 

And if you aren't a jerk, the community is really helpful. Heck, they're even helpful if you are a jerk...'cuz the Moodle community is AWESOME. That doesn't mean you won't get told off...but it will generally be polite. I've been here 17 years. I've been involved in many communities for a lot of programs. My experience has been that there isn't a better group of people anywhere (*mostly because we are everywhere...). I think I posted about this a couple months ago. Okay, I'm climbing off my soapbox.

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V odpovědi na Andrew Uyeno

Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Harry watson -

When creating scripts and web applications, error handling is an important part. If your code lacks error checking code, your program may look very unprofessional and you may be open to security risks.
different error handling methods are:
Simple"die()" statements
Custom errors and error triggers
Error reporting


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Re: Error Messages When ... Sending Messages(!). How indicative is this of Moodle's general reliability?

autor Jawad Ali -

Thanks a lot it helps us a lot good info.

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