mguhlin

MoodleTip – Feedback and Solving Problems

Thank you very much for your e-book Adventures in Moodle Administration.

Source: Email from Moodle user. 


It’s always great to get affirmations like this one about the work one does and I’m certainly grateful to my PLN for providing those in abundance. However, every solution brings new opportunities for learning in the form of problems:

Thank you very much for your e-book Adventures in Moodle Administration.  I’ve been trying to replace a fried Moodle server with a new one using 2.1.  The old server I setup using XAMPP, and really didn’t have any problems once I got it working in our DMZ.
I’ve tried to follow your excellent directions, but I’ve run into two problems, if I could impose upon you and ask for your help.The first is logistical – my old server was simply moodle.schoolname.org [anonymized to protect emailer’s privacy]Now it seems that I might have to append /moodle to that address?Is there any way I can get the old address to work? 


Second, I seem to have messed up the connection to the database.  Moodle still runs, but after I added a theme and two mods and a filter, I obviously did something wrong. I can’t access the database through phpMyAdmin, the login page comes up, won’t accept my password, or gives me this message: Error  Cannot start session without errors, please check errors in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation correctly.Or more recently a numeric error.  What is my next step? Is there a file I need to look at? (What file, and where would it be?) A tool to check the MySQL database? Or should I just scrap the whole thing and start over?Thank you for your time, I’m more of teacher than a programmer – actually not a programmer at all, so I can get lost when easily in the innards of Moodle.

Below is my response…what would you response be?

Thanks for the email and my apologies for not responding sooner.


Your old address should work, but you need to put the contents of the Moodle folder at what is called the “root” level of your site. Wherever that address points, you put the contents of your Moodle site there, not in a subfolder (e.g. Moodle). That means that when people type in your address, it will go straight to your Moodle site’s index page because it is “in the path.” I hope I’m not confusing with geek speak!

As to the dbase problem, that really does sound like a corrupt dbase that you will need to fix. What you’ll need to do is optimize/repair your MySQL table. How to accomplish this is limited if your PHPMyAdmin is unavailable. If you have physical access to the server, though, or can access it remotely in a way that allows you to run programs (I presume Windows-based server since you’re running XAMPP), then you can try using Navicat Lite to “repair/optimize” your database(s).

Here is a tutorial on how to repair your MySQL database – 
Repairing Your MySQL Database – Part 1 and Part 2 

If you can’t login to your MySQL, then things are far worse off. There is a way to accomplish that and I can send you an email with that info…but it can be touch and go. Here’s a blog entry--Conversations that Solve Problems–that I hope will provide some guidance to you.

Finally, I urge you to join MoodleMayhem.org email list and/or Facebook group, where a wonderful group of folks might be able to offer deeper insights.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

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