where exactly are my backup course files? in moodle 2.0

August 3, 2012, 9:20 am

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by marc h.  

hi,

ive just installed a test version of moodle 2.0, created a test course, backed it up, and went to restore my converted 1.9.x course file [converted to .mbz file versus the old version used the .zip]

anyway, i went to restore my converted course file, and i keep getting file too large errors, php, etc.. and im trying to work on that with my host.

 

however, i wanted to just try to ftp the file there manually, and try to restore... but for some reason i just dont know at all where the backup course data folder is, whats its caleld or anything... it used to be in the course folder in the od version..

can someone point me to the basic folder structure for moodle 2.0 and where i should begin looking?

thanks

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Re: where exactly are my backup course files? in moodle 2.0

August 3, 2012, 9:24 am

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by Mary Cooch.  

Hi there. Do you mean Moodle 2.0 (which is quite old) or do you mean Moodle 2.2 or 2.3 which are newer? Whichever way, this might give you an insight into file structure of Moodle 2 http://docs.moodle.org/en/Course_files

Basically there is no FTPing now but you could make a File system repository and upload it to there http://docs.moodle.org/en/File_system_repository

Re: where exactly are my backup course files? in moodle 2.0

August 3, 2012, 9:41 am

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by marc h.  

yes, thanks, i meant 2.3.1 i think,,, its my first forey into the moodle 2.0 world, just trying out the course conversion thingy to see if there a major difference in 2.x for my uses/purposes, as my course is basic, and i have stareted using the gradebook as yet, i heard it was easier in 2.x

Re: where exactly are my backup course files? in moodle 2.0

August 3, 2012, 9:46 am

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by Mary Cooch.  

Course conversion thingy? You don't mean http://www.conversionthingy.net/ I don't think you need that now as 1.9 courses should restore into 2.3. Although you will still have the size issue. I am not sure the gradebook is easier than in 1.9 -but there are lots of major advantages of 2.3 over 1.9

Problems Restoring from 1.9 to 2.3

August 6, 2012, 7:23 am

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by Jim Murray.  

Hello everyone!  I have 5 courses from a 1.9 version of Moodle that I cannot restore into a brand new 2.3 site.  I have been successful with about 200 other courses, but these 5 simply cause the restore process to hang at various places.

There is no user data or files involved.  The sizes of the courses vary.  There are no "3rd party" modules or activities involved.  So my question is:

Are there specific file types that are known to disrupt the restore process?  flv files?  Smartboard notebook files? 

Sometimes the restore hangs at the very last step of the restore, sometimes early in the process.

I have tried to break the backup of those courses into smaller sections, but I'm always getting the course files included, even when in 1.9 I specifically put NO in the course files option to make the install.

So I'm really baffled here.  I haven't done the debugging yet to see the error messages yet, because I'm just trying to get my head around what possible problems there might be in these 5 courses.  Especially when everything else went so great.  Some of the successful courses were actually larger restores than my 5 failures.

So, if anyone can give me a background lesson, including how to break up backups into smaller restores......I just need to clear my head.

Thanks!

Jim Murray

Re: Problems Restoring from 1.9 to 2.3

August 6, 2012, 8:08 am

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by Bob Puffer.  

What version of 1.9 are you coming from?  Are there a lot of users in these courses (I know you said there's no user data being brought over which would be the standard case using Moodle's backup restore)?  Have you tried anything away from the core backup/ restore modules like "conversionthingy"?

Re: Problems Restoring from 1.9 to 2.3

August 6, 2012, 8:34 am

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by Helen Foster.  

Hi Jim,

How about trying to restore the 5 courses into a 2.2 site, then backing them up in the 2.2 site and restoring them to your new 2.3 site?

Re: Backup from 2.2 to 1.9 - problem

August 8, 2012, 9:19 am

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by Mary Cooch.  

From the top of this page, choose an installer package for Mac or Windows http://download.moodle.org/ and follow the instructions. When you have made a course you can then back it up and restore it online into your Moodle - see here Course backup and [[Course restore]

Edit - just saw your profile (Sheffield - I am in Preston) Love this line (quote) I am definitely not technical - just a teacher who writes courses and does basic Moodle admin. That's me

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Re: How to restore large course backup of moodle 2.1 in to new course

August 8, 2012, 9:22 am

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by Mary Cooch.  

Try Visvanath's suggestion File system repository

Re: Backup from 2.2 to 1.9 - problem

August 8, 2012, 10:07 am

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by Christine Healey.  

I think you're being a bit modest there, Mary - I've benefited in the past from your advice  - and a big 'thank you' for the guidance. After 4 years, I'm still looking up basics like .xml (and not understanding the answer) and have yet to see a ftp site!

I've just got off the phone to our Moodle host, who has dug out some old database backups from April. He's going to mirror the 1.9 Moodle, so I can backup and transfer the course onto the live Moodle (making sure this time I tick ALL the boxes) and then go and grab anything that is only on the 2.2 to upload manually.

THEN we are going to start from scratch with a clean 2.2 (or 2.3) to avoid all the migration issues we're having with old courses.

Not saying that I can relax just yet, but I feel a lot more hopeful! Once again, Moodle support forums kept me sane.

Re: Backup from 2.2 to 1.9 - problem

August 8, 2012, 10:14 am

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by Mary Cooch.  

Ah well done your host!

Problem coverting Moodle 1.9.19 to Moodle 2.3

August 8, 2012, 11:53 am

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by Mike Edwards.  

I keep gfetting the following message

Restore method process_grid is missing. It must be defined by a developer.

Any thoughts

Re: Problem coverting Moodle 1.9.19 to Moodle 2.3

August 8, 2012, 11:58 am

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by Mary Cooch.  

Are you using the grid course format? Perhaps you could try deleting that course format from your 1.9 install and then trying to upgrade?

Re: Problem coverting Moodle 1.9.19 to Moodle 2.3

August 8, 2012, 12:54 pm

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by Mike Edwards.  

Thanks it did work I appreciate it. But I still had to convert it

Solution to restoring large course from 1.9 to 2.3

August 8, 2012, 4:31 pm

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by Debbie Unterseher.  

I have been struggling to import a couple large classes (1.4 GB) from Moodle 1.9 to 2.3.  Tried backing up only a certain portion of the class, such as the quizzes, but still it gave a database error or just hung and didn't do anything.

First solution, was to NOT use Internet Explorer.  Make sure no one is using that for Moodle.  We chose to use Chrome.

Second thing I did was to create a "new course" on Moodle 1.9 and import (not restore) the large course from the same Moodle 1.9 server.  I then did a backup of the "new course" in Moodle 1.9.  The file size went from 1.4 GB to less than .6 GB.  I then took that backup and restored it into the Moodle 2.3 server and everything worked great.

Each semester we do a backup of the courses, and then restore them into an empty course shell, so we now have a copy of 7 years worth of data.  I am thinking that caused some of the problem.

Hope this helps someone.   

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Re: Re-using Courses via Backup/Restore or Import

August 8, 2012, 8:39 pm

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by Debbie Unterseher.  

I want to know why, as a college, we can't just set up courses, and reset courses every semester.  Yes, teachers would have to download copies of their students' grades, but why do we have to back everything up on the server?  Seems like a huge waste of resources.  Thanks for any input.

Raw copy of course and contents, Moodle 1.9

August 9, 2012, 9:25 am

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by Morten Pless.  

Greetings Moodlers!

Just wondering if anyone has got this in stock....
I need a script to copy a course and its contents in to a new course. No userdata is needed.

I need it because we have been using the restore functionality (silent), but it tends to time out with some of our courses.
And i ask the question here, because i do not have the complete picture of which tables to copy from.

Btw:
The userscenario is that a user has access to create a copy of an unenrollable "mastercourse". This is currently done with an Ajax call that invokes the silent restore. Then the user is enrolled into the course as teacher, some coursesettings are updated and the course appears in the users courselist. Pretty smooth so far....
Sadly, the restore procedure times out (in some occations).

Hoping for the magic solution from you guys

Best regards
Morten Pless

Re: Restore Causing Deadlock in Moodle 2.3.1

August 9, 2012, 8:45 pm

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by Archana Suresh.  

I have found the cause for this issue. The problem was in in line no 930 moodle\backup\util\dbops\restore_dbops.class. The query in that line caused the deadlock. 

Database error

August 10, 2012, 5:38 am

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by Debbie Heck.  

I am in the process of copying over courses from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.2.2 and it has been going well up until this one course. In June I was able to backup the course and then restore it in 2.2 without any problems. I now have another teacher who wants to use this course and has permission from the original teacher so I created a new course and when I try to restore from the same file I get the following errors: Error writing to data base. Error reading from database.

I creating a new backup from the old 1.9 and got the same errors. I tried to run a backup of the new course that is already in 2.2 but get the above errors when I try to run the backup. It isn't a size issue, the file is only 177MB.

Any ideas?

Re: Database error

August 10, 2012, 6:58 am

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by Ken Task.  

Look in moodle data folder/temp/backup/ of the 2 instance.

One should find 0 byte 'hash-named' dot log files of restores that were successful and (possibly) 'hash-named' dot log files with more than 0 bytes of restores that failed - as well as 'hash-named' files/folders which one can 'browse'.  Those might give you some hints.

Suggest making a copy of the 1.9 course ON the 1.9 system and changing some basic information ... maybe even re-naming files contained therein - all lower case no spaces or 'special characters', all have extensions that are lower case, etc.  One could do that using the Files link in the course admin menu.  Be sure to re-link to those files in  the course.

Did the course in the 1.9 contain any blocks/mods (resources) that aren't core to Moodle?   If so, remove those blocks/mods (resources) from the work copy of the 1.9 course before making the no user backup of the work copy.

Bottom line ... 'scrub' the copy of the 1.9 course before making a no user backup and TIA (try it again).

One could also clean up the course ID folder of the copy in the 1.9 - erase any 1.9 backups contained there in.  Then copy that course ID folder to the 2 instance repository directory.  When/if, working with that course, and a file link not working or missing, setup a file system repo that points to that course ID folder in the 2 repository directory.

If on a Linux server and both instances of Moodle reside on the same server, one could use symlinks (temporary) from the 2's repository directory to specific 1.9 course ID folders in the 1.9 data folder.

'spirit of sharing', Ken