Windows 11 Pro 22H2 - Struggles with the Windows Installer

Windows 11 Pro 22H2 - Struggles with the Windows Installer

by Przemek Kaszubski -
Number of replies: 0
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Hi Moodle Friends,

Been struggling a bit today with my former and current Moodle Windows installations copied onto my Windows 11 Pro machine, as well as with a  new Moodle 4.2 beta install there.

Things appear to have been working OK for me until the latest Windows 11 upgrade, which I performed on April 10th.
My current system is: Windows 11 Pro 22H2 22621.1555 Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22640.1000.0 (11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz   1.38 GHz ; 16 GB RAM ; DELL Latitude 3520)

What I found today was that the "Start Moodle", as well as the "xampp_start" commands had ceased to complete, closing down suddenly at the first cmd console/terminal window, and registering dozens of errors in the Windows event log, such as the following (I'm quoting below only some, and sparing any messages recorded in Polish; these examples are copied from my Moodle 3.11, but the same problems affected my localhost Moodle 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2 beta) :

  • MariaDB: The parameter innodb_large_prefix is deprecated and has no effect. It may be removed in future releases. See https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/xtradbinnodb-file-format/
  • MariaDB: InnoDB: Operating system error number 3 in a file operation.
  • MariaDB: InnoDB: The error means the system cannot find the path specified.
  • Maria DB: InnoDB: If you are installing InnoDB, remember that you must create directories yourself, InnoDB does not create them.
  • Maria DB: InnoDB: Cannot open datafile for read-only: '.\phpmyadmin\pma__bookmark.ibd' OS error: 203
  • Maria DB: InnoDB: Operating system error number 203 in a file operation.
  • Maria DB: InnoDB: Could not find a valid tablespace file for ``phpmyadmin`.`pma__bookmark``. Please refer to https://mariadb.com/kb/en/innodb-data-dictionary-troubleshooting/ for how to resolve the issue.
  • Maria DB: InnoDB: Ignoring tablespace for `phpmyadmin`.`pma__bookmark` because it could not be opened.
  • Maria DB: InnoDB: Operating system error number 3 in a file operation.
and several repetitions of the above.

At the end I'd also received PHP errors like:
  • php[1084] PHP Warning: Module 'openssl' already loaded (apache\bin\httpd.exe -f conf\httpd.conf)
  • php[11664] PHP Warning: Module 'openssl' already loaded (C:\Moodle311\server\apache\bin\httpd.exe -d C:/Moodle311/server/apache -f conf\httpd.conf)
For the Moodle 4.2 beta (but also for Moodle 4.1), I also saw these:
  • php[11596] PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'sodium' (tried: C:\Moodle41\server\php\ext\sodium (Nie można odnaleźć określonego modułu.), C:\Moodle41\server\php\ext\php_sodium.dll (Nie można odnaleźć określonego modułu.)) (apache\bin\httpd.exe -f conf\httpd.conf)
  • php[17188] PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'sodium' (tried: C:\Moodle41\server\php\ext\sodium (Nie można odnaleźć określonego modułu.), C:\Moodle41\server\php\ext\php_sodium.dll (Nie można odnaleźć określonego modułu.)) (C:\Moodle41\server\apache\bin\httpd.exe -d C:/Moodle41/server/apache -f conf\httpd.conf)
(It helped to copy the \server\php\libsodium.dll library to \server\apache\bin\libsodium.dll - as I had read here https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=444514 .  But this only removed the last two errors, and not the various others.)


In the end, I managed to get my Windows Moodles to "behave" in this way:

  • for new installs - I used the  "Start Moodle" option; after it shut itself down, I ran the "Stop Moodle" executable to make sure any of the server processes were properly stopped. This entire step also ensured the XAMPP package would config itself as needed before installing Moodle 4.2 beta;
  • then for the Moodle install itself, and for later in-browser use, I'd go to the "server" folder, and run, in this order:
    • apache_start.bat
    • mysql_start.bat
    • and I'd make sure those two command terminal windows remained open while I could visit the browser and do my work.
  • When done, and ready to leave Moodle, I logout, then - to gracefully leave everything clean behind - I return to the "server" sub-folder and run the xampp_stop.exe, or I else hit the usual "Stop Moodle.exe", which proceeds to close the two server windows.
The mysql_start.bat registers a number of errors still, which I think relate to the phpmyAdmin ? However, the Moodle site itself and its database seems to be working OK. Still, things do not look right, overall.

The above makes me suspect there may be something wrong with the packed XAMPP package and/or its script and /or ini file that is preventing XAMPP from working properly with (some latest versions of ?) Windows 11 , especially preventing the opening of the second / dependent console/terminal command window and preventing proper set-up of the MariaDB database.

Perhaps some other users have found similar problems. In any case, I've decided to share my story, and maybe call attention to possible improvements / updates in the Windows installation packages.
Maybe also this doc https://docs.moodle.org/402/en/Complete_install_packages_for_Windows requires further touch-up.

Kind regards,

Przemek
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