Random Unfinished Course Backup

Random Unfinished Course Backup

by Tom Hogan -
Number of replies: 3
The last few days I've had a problem with one or two courses every day not being backed up - I get two error messages emailed to me. One from my host that the cron died and another from Moodle about the course(s) being unfinished.

From Moodle Docs:
Unfinished - this happens when the backup procedure dies without knowing why. When the cron is next executed it detects that the last execution went wrong, and continues skipping the problematic course. A possible solution would be to raise the PHP/Apache limit in your installation (memory, time of execution...). By taking a look to your log tables you should be able to see if the "crash" is happening at exact time intervals (usually a problem with the max_execution_time php's variable), or if there is some exact point were all the courses are breaking (generally internal zip libraries, try to switch to external executables instead).

Some details:
  1. There are very few courses on the site (little over 20) and they are all small.
  • Most are around 100 k backed up and zipped
  • 3-4 are around 1800 k backed up and zipped
The cron does not "continue skipping the problematic course". The course(s) unfinished on one day are not the same unfinished the next day. Sometimes they are the bigger courses, sometimes the smaller.
The crash does not happen at a consistent place (sometimes when copying course logs, sometimes when copying user files). I haven't kept the old logs (started downloading the last execution log to my PC today), but here is data from the last log:
Course Time taken Status Next
Courseid1 13 Sep, 14:00 - 13 Sep, 14:00 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid2 13 Sep, 14:00 - 13 Sep, 14:00 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid3 13 Sep, 14:00 - 13 Sep, 14:01 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid4 13 Sep, 14:01 - 13 Sep, 14:01 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid5 13 Sep, 14:01 - 13 Sep, 14:01 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid6 13 Sep, 14:01 - 13 Sep, 14:01 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid7 13 Sep, 14:01 - 12 Sep, 14:45 Unfinished 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid8 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid9 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid10 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid11 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid12 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid13 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid14 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid15 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid16 1 Sep, 14:01 - 1 Sep, 14:01 Skipped 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid17 13 Sep, 14:45 - 13 Sep, 14:45 OK 14 Sep, 06:00
Courseid18 13 Sep, 14:45 - 12 Sep, 14:45 Unfinished 13 Sep, 06:00
Courseid19 12 Sep, 14:45 - 12 Sep, 14:45 OK 13 Sep, 06:00
etc..

Does anyone know what the problem might be?
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In reply to Tom Hogan

Re: Random Unfinished Course Backup

by Séverin Terrier -
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Hello,

i don't know where the problem comes from, but i've got the same one, with Moodle 1.8.2+ from 10 september.

Each day, some courses can't be entirely backed up sad
It's not always the same courses, and it can be at several places (copying files, zipping...)

I already use external zip, and my cron directly call php, with max_execution_time=0

Hope this will help to find, and fix this problem...
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In reply to Séverin Terrier

Re: Random Unfinished Course Backup

by Tom Hogan -
Mine is Moodle 1.8.1+ (2007021510), but that is really weird!
My first error came on Sept.10 too...!
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In reply to Tom Hogan

Re: Random Unfinished Course Backup

by Andy del Hierro -
I have only one course that will not backup saying it was not able to copy back the files to the course directory. Not sure why this happens. I limited the backup to just some parts. I have over 5 gigs of video files on this course but funny enough it is not the video files but my test back will not backup.

This was confirmed when i just tried to back up the test bank alone.

Any and all help on this would be great as i need to reset the class soon for new semester.

Andy
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