Visvanath Ratnaweera

> It's a managed Moodle site. I can't comment on whether the Moodle Partner has customised the Moodle Core code.

Can you confirm that the Site backup given to you by the Moodle Partner did not contain the Moodle code?

If the code is indeed missing, did you ask the Moodle Partner, Why? They haven't managed your Moodle for free, I assume.

FYI: The config.php file is not part of the Moodle code.

> Surely it shouldn't be this complicated.

For you? Possibly. But not for everybody. Have a look at the hundreds of thousand help requests in these forums.

>> You just have to follow Moodle migration.

> I did.

No you didn't. It says Moodle_migration#Copy_the_Moodle_code_from_the_old_server_to_the_new_server. Your description doesn't have that. It had only:

>> After coping the filedir folder to MoodleData folder and restoring the mySQL database to a database of the same name as the backed-up database, I updated the config.php file to change the line $CFG ->dbname to use the corresponding database name.

Don't you think you are answering only the questions that suit you? What about,

>> What about additional plug-ins?

Since you don't answer my questions, I won't waste my time formulating questions any more.

Good luck!

> We received the backup of our mySQL database and MoodleData/filedir folder. (Though it is disappointing that it's not a full site backup, so it won't actually be a true replica of our current Moodle site).

You mean the Moodle code was missing? Ref. Site backup. It was a managed Moodle, not Moodle as a service? Then the code must be unchanged from the FOSS code.

What about additional plug-ins?

> I'm not all that familiar with the backend workings so am muddling my way through with moodle docs and youtube videos. We don't have internal IT with moodle or Linux knowledge I can refer to for assistance.

And that for a running production (commercial) site?

> I installed php7.4 and Moodle 3.11 on an AWS Lightsail Ubuntu 22.04 instance without any issues and got the 'standard' blank moodle running.

No idea what Lightsail is, but if it is a standard Moodle 22.04 LTS Server, that is a main-stream distribution, which many in the community use.

> After coping the filedir folder to MoodleData folder and restoring the mySQL database to a database of the same name as the backed-up database, I updated the config.php file to change the line $CFG ->dbname to use the corresponding database name.

Not clear. You just have to follow Moodle migration.

> The login page shows (though the behaviour is the default Boost theme behaviour). When I log in, instead of seeing the normal Dashboard/Home page, I get the following error:

You mean, the site presents itself as expected but throws this error only when you try to log in? Create a test.html file in the Moodle code directory and visit yoursite/test.html in your browser. If it does not render the HTML, your problem is unrelated to Moodle.

Did you know that you can soon drive Mac, and I Linux, if we hold on till 2028?
https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-car-apparently-still-exists-could-debut-in-2028-with-reduced-autonomy-203458008.html

Strictly speaking, it will be Apple driving us, but that is what we want, right?

P.S. Finally it is time for https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=452306#p1817676 and f.f. to get an own thread in the Lounge.

A crontab of
1 * * * * COMMAND
runs hourly! (00:01, 01:01, 02:01, ..)

Caution: crontab of the user www-data is the right one. Did you delete the crontab(s) you created previously for some other user?

To see what is happening to calls to cron.php though the crontab, read its logs. Remove the >/dev/null part and read the mails of www-data, 'mail -f /var/mail/www-data'.

P.S. Please avoid unnecessarily formatting you text. The notification mail of the original post arrived in all-caps!

You are right. Some are tags, others have only the "head". My point is though the diverse schemes the additional plug-ins use making the life of the system administrator miserable.