Subject: [LON-CAPA-dev] Role suddenly not working - JMU

From: Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:06:25 -0500

Hi,

A strange thing has happened at JMU. One of the instructors there was
working along in his course when suddenly he was no longer allowed to
access the course. The last thing he did was download a spreadsheet.

In working with Andreas Knab, the LON-CAPA support person there, we
found that his roles file had a key "error" in it (no value), but in
looking at the history, this seems to have been put in long ago (in the
beginning).

The instructor hasn't indicated doing anything strange to his browser at
the time this happened, and he's pretty good at remembering these
things. I'm going to tack on a couple of his messages below. They
complain about javascript, but what confuses me is that this all
happened in the middle of a session.

If anyone has seen anything like this or has any suggestions, I'd be
interested.

I just checked and they are on LON-CAPA 2.6.3.

Thanks!
Mark

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, this didn't fix the problem.  Here's the appearance of the
screen 
when I chose Course Coordinator Role for PHYS 250_1_2_SP09:
#######
     Main Menu Return to Last Location Navigate Contents Edit Course
Groups 
Launch Remote Control Roles Help  Exit

      User Roles (jmu_4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1 PHYS250_1_2_SP09)
      Course Coordinator
      PHYS250_1_2_SP09

Use of LON-CAPA requires Javascript to be enabled in your web browser.
As this is not the case, most functionality in the system will be 
unavailable.

You need to choose another user role or enter a specific course for
this 
function
Sorry ...
This action is currently not authorized.

#########

This appeared after the system thought about my request for a good
60-90 
seconds.  During that time, the progress bar at the bottom of the
screen 
inched along to about 40-50% full.

My situation is that my roles as domain coordinator for jmu , course 
coordinator for P250 and for a light-and-sound course froma  previous 
semester still display as if they could be selected, but that the Start 
column (which shows the starting dates for my various roles in the
other 
courses) is blank for the above three roles.

I hope that you can identify a fix, and of course I would really like
to 
understand how this occurred in the first place.

----------------------------------------------------
Another data point -- maybe this has to do with a file relating to me 
personally?

I just tried to select my role as a STUDENT in P250 and following is
the 
display I got after 60-90 minutes [I presume seconds] of waiting.  It
briefly flashed the screen 
that said "entering P250" and then I got the following:  (Notice the
"try 
selecting again" button that appears instead of "select" for that role.)

     Main Menu Return to Last Location Navigate Contents Launch Remote 
Control Roles Help  Exit

      User Roles (jmu_4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1 PHYS250_1_2_SP09) 
      Student
      PHYS250_1_2_SP09

Use of LON-CAPA requires Javascript to be enabled in your web browser.
As this is not the case, most functionality in the system will be 
unavailable.

Show all roles:
        User Role Extent Start End
      Construction Space
     Author Domain: jmu
      Server: lc.cit.jmu.edu Tue Dec 11 02:02:48 pm 2007 (EST)

      Course
     Course Coordinator ASTR120_1_FA08 Syllabus
      Domain:jmu Tue Aug 26 02:09:25 pm 2008 (EDT)

     Course Coordinator PHYS250_1_2_SP09 Syllabus
      Domain:jmu

     Course Coordinator Physical Nature of Light and Sound Syllabus
      Domain:jmu

     Course Coordinator LON-CAPA Sample Course / Fall 2006 Syllabus
      Domain:ohiou Mon Dec 10 04:42:45 pm 2007 (EST)

     Instructor Physical Nature of Light and Sound Syllabus
      Domain:jmu Tue Jul 15 10:17:51 am 2008 (EDT)

     Student PHYS250_1_2_SP09 Syllabus Wed Jan 7 11:04:34 am 2009 (EST)
      Currently selected.

     No role specified

This is LON-CAPA 2.6.3-2008040416

---

From: Gerd Kortemeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 10:12:39 -0500

Hi,

That is very odd, I don't think I have seen anything like it.

For now, I would suggest to delete his session file from

  /home/httpd/lonIDs

The filename should look something like this:

korte_123384667395981402_gerd_gerdl1.id

- at least that would clear out any weird state that his session might  
be in.

- Gerd.

On Feb 5, 2009, at 10:06 AM, Mark Lucas wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> [email-masked]
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev

---

From: Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:27:16 -0500

Gerd,

That was one of the things we checked yesterday. He had exited properly,
so it seemed to be gone.

The roles file looked a little strange. When I print out key/value
pairs, I got:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[lucas@lucas jmu]$ ../util/list/listdb.pl roles.db
/jmu/1G108693592dd46b3jmul1_cc
cc_0_1199163600
/jmu/1G108693592dd46b3jmul1_in
in_0_1216131471
/jmu/2d124618945b44880jmul1_cc
cc_0_1219774165
/jmu/4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1_cc
cc_0_1230786000
/jmu/4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1_st
st_0_1231344274
/jmu/_au
au_0_1197399768
/jmu/_dc
dc
/jmu/oneillth_ca
ca_0_1233335684
/ohiou/2a1367912761945dboucapa2_cc
cc_0_1197322965
error

[lucas@lucas jmu]$ 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the history file:

/jmu/_dc : dc
P:1188420312:jmu:inghamwh:error
P:1188926005:jmu:inghamwh:/jmu/1G108693592dd46b3jmul1_cc=cc
P:1197322965:ohiou:lucas:/ohiou/2a1367912761945dboucapa2_cc=cc_0_1197322965
P:1197399768:jmu:inghamwh:/jmu/_au=au_0_1197399768
P:1216131471:jmu:inghamwh:/jmu/1G108693592dd46b3jmul1_in=in_0_1216131471
P:1219774165:jmu:knab2ar:/jmu/2d124618945b44880jmul1_cc=cc_0_1219774165
P:1229614756:jmu:knab2ar:/jmu/4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1_cc=cc
P:1231344274:jmu:inghamwh:/jmu/4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1_st=st_0_1231344274
P:1233335684:jmu:oneillth:/jmu/oneillth_ca=ca_0_1233335684
P:1233777777:jmu:knab2ar:/jmu/4C82821a46e4a492cjmul1_cc=cc_0_1230786000
P:1233777861:jmu:knab2ar:/jmu/1G108693592dd46b3jmul1_cc=cc_0_1199163600
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did note that they were on 2.6.3, so I might nudge them to bump up.

I'll let you know if Andreas finds a silver bullet.

Mark

-- 
Mark Lucas                                      email: [email-masked]
252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701

---

From: Peter Riegler <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:08:55 +0100

Hi,

this looks exactly like what had happened to me several times. The first 
time was about 18 months ago.
My usual remedy is to log into another loncapa-Server and work there. 
When I log into my home server the next day, everything will be fine 
again. This is what I call the self-healing property of loncapa (whose 
existence Gerd denies ;-).
My leaky memory tells me that Stuart and Stefan got some insight into 
the issue in November.

Peter

-- 
Peter Riegler
Fachhochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel
Salzdahlumer Str. 46/48, 38302 Wolfenbüttel
Tel. +49 5331 939 6314, Fax. +49 5331 939 6002
email: [email-masked]
http://public.rz.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/~riegler

---

From: Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:33:06 -0500

Hmmm ... did you try deleting the ID files or was it even independent of
that? (so somehow buried in the cache?)

Mark

---

From: Gerd Kortemeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 14:40:35 -0500

Hi,

Could you please have the user login to another machine, like for  
example s10.lite.msu.edu, and see if the session comes up correctly?  
You'll need to change the "domain" field on the login screen.

- Gerd.

---

From: Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:18:48 -0500

Gerd,

It looks like things are working again for him. Unfortunately, we won't
know whether it was the fix of the roles.db or just waiting 12 hours.

Mark

---

From: Stefan Bisitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:55:42 +0000 (GMT)

Hi,

It seems that a second click on the "select" button on the roles screen messes up the already running course initialization. I assume that the db files are not properly set up and a deletion could help. This (or something with the same effect) is automatically done over night due to a LON-CAPA cron job.

It has always been just an issue with one user account on one server with one course. All other combinations works absolutely fine after this one combination failed.

That is what I remember.

Stefan Bisitz

On 05.02.09, Mark Lucas  <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev (http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev)
> > 
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev (http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev)
> 
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev (http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev)
>

---

From: Gerd Kortemeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 17:07:08 -0500

Hi,

Usually, there is a piece of JavaScript on the Roles screen that stops  
you from selecting the same button twice.

- Gerd.

On Feb 5, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Stefan Bisitz wrote:

> Hi,
>
> It seems that a second click on the "select" button on the roles  
> screen messes up the already running course initialization. I assume  
> that the db files are not properly set up and a deletion could help.  
> This (or something with the same effect) is automatically done over  
> night due to a LON-CAPA cron job.
>
> It has always been just an issue with one user account on one server  
> with one course. All other combinations works absolutely fine after  
> this one combination failed.
>
> That is what I remember.
>
> Stefan Bisitz
>
>
>> > >> this looks exactly like what had happened to me several times.  
>> The
>> > >> first

---

From: Peter Riegler <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:34:30 +0100

Mark Lucas wrote:

> Hmmm ... did you try deleting the ID files 
No. Don't know how to do that.
As for Stefan's comment: We also have a report where the role was not 
accessible anymore after a cc uploaded a doc.
or was it even independent of