[LON-CAPA-admin] LON-CAPA version 2.6.1 slower?

[Stuart Peter Raeburn]

Hi, 

It is entirely reasonable that that one particular operation - upload of a 
CSV classlist into a course - will take longer in 2.6.X than it did in 
2.5.X. 

The reason is that in 2.6.X, before modifying user information (name, email 
address, student ID/number) for existing users, based on data in the 
uploaded file, checking now occurs to determine if domain-wide settings (set 
by the DC via Domain Configuration) permit this information to be changed 
for existing users in the domain. This can depend on the context of the CSV 
file upload (course, author, or domain), and the role being assigned to each 
user.  In cases where the student number is changed, a check is made to see 
if the proposed new number is consistent with any rules defined for student 
ID/numbers in the domain. 

When the addition of a user to a course requires creation of a new username 
in the domain, a check is made to see if the proposed username is consistent 
with username rules defined for the domain.  The rules themselves need to be 
defined in a customized version of /home/httpd/lib/perl/localenroll.pm, but 
the DC can choose which rules (if any have been defined) are enforced or not 
enforced using the Domain Configuration screen. 

I'll take a look at the code and see if these operations which occur when 
processing users in an uploaded file can be optimized so they will complete 
more quickly.  I just uploaded a CSV file of 10 students to a test course on 
a 2.6.1 machine, and the enrollment process took 2 seconds per student, 
which is certainly not a speedy operation.  I'll try the same on a 2.5.3 
machine for comparison. 

By the way, in 2.6.X, uploads of user lists, in CSV format, can be used to   
assign roles to users besides "student" (e.g., custom roles, or TAs etc.).  
In addition CSV uploads can also be used by a user in the role of Domain 
Coordinator to change authentication type (and password for internally 
authenticated users), as well as student number for users in a domain.  In 
earlier versions of LON-CAPA, use of CSV file upload was limited to student 
roster management in a course. 

I would expect no difference between 2.5.X and 2.6.X in the time required to 
upload other types of CSV files (e.g., scores to a score upload form). 

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group 

Stefan Bisitz writes: 

> Lars Jensen wrote:
>> We are running loncapa v. 2.6.1. After we upgraded to v. 2.6 loncapa 
>> seems to have become a little bit slower...  For example it takes over 1 
>> min to upload a 30-line csv roster file of course users (and I did this 
>> at a time of practically zero load on the server). v. 2.5 and below did 
>> this in a matter of seconds, as far as I recall. 
>> 
>> Has anyone else noticed a slowdown with v. 2.6.x? 
>> 
>> Lars.
> 
> Hi Lars, 
> 
> We haven't used LON-CAPA very much since the update yesterday afternoon
> local time. I can only say that our authors who are creating and testing
> new problems these days haven't complained yet. 
> 
> Stefan 
> 
> 
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