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ymarkov - l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem

ymarkov - l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
inactiveTopicl2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem topic started 9/16/2003; 12:15:14 PM
last post 11/11/2003; 9:53:14 AM
userymarkov - l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem  blueArrow
9/16/2003; 12:15:14 PM (reads: 965, responses: 4)
We have problems with the 1.9 setup affecting l2hprecreate and other issues. the command

nice /webwork/s1/WWW/webwork/system/scripts/l2hPrecreateSet.pl math135test set3.def > & set3tst.log & yields the following line in the log file a few times over

Global symbol "$scriptDirectory" requires explicit package name at /webwork/s1/WWW/webwork/system/scripts/precreate.pl line 242. Compilation failed in require at /webwork/s1/WWW/webwork/system/scripts/l2hPrecreateSet.pl line 53.

Any ideas will be most helpful,

Regards, Y.markov, Rutgers

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userArnold K. Pizer - Re: l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem  blueArrow
9/16/2003; 1:43:38 PM (reads: 1171, responses: 1)

Hi,

First let me say that with WW 1.9 you should definitely be using typeset 2 mode (dvipng) and should set this as the default in Global.pm (if you do, almost no one will use typeset mode and you can even remove typeset mode if you wish).  dvipng is very fast and there should be no need to run precreation scripts (either l2hPrecreateSet.pl or pngPrecreateSet.pl).

The bug you report is in the script precreate.pl. To fix this bug  edit  .../webwork/system/scripts/precreate.pl changing lines 241-2 from:

        $envir{'externalGif2EpsPath'}           = scriptDirectory.'gif2eps';  #compatible with previous standard of storing this script in the scripts directory
        $envir{'externalPng2EpsPath'}           = scriptDirectory.'png2eps';

to

        $envir{'externalGif2EpsPath'}           = $Global::scriptDirectory.'gif2eps';  #compatible with previous standard of storing this script in the scripts directory
        $envir{'externalPng2EpsPath'}           = $Global::scriptDirectory.'png2eps';

That is add $Global:: in two places.  Or you can grab a new copy of precreate.pl from the CVS.

 

Arnie

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userymarkov - Re: l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem  blueArrow
9/16/2003; 2:41:54 PM (reads: 1171, responses: 0)
I understand the advantages of typeset2, and that is what we run. However, we still have the coredump problems, which I am now conviced, are caused by the system set-up. I am looking for anything that might be the culprit, even if l2h did not seem to fit that role. I have corrected the external path to dvipng, and I also discovered that the line

use PGtranslator; # this is so that PGtranslator->evalute_macros is available ...

was commented in the Global.pm file. I have uncomented it (as in 1.7) to check if that might be the cause of our troubles.

Thanks again for the input.

Yavor

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userMichael McCooey - Re: l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem  blueArrow
11/10/2003; 9:19:00 PM (reads: 1322, responses: 0)
Hello.
   
    I'm running a Webwork course as a guest on Webwork2 at UR. Several students who tried to log on last Thursday night (November 6) had difficulties either logging on or viewing properly typeset (typeset2, to be precise) formulas. The problems were sporadic and mostly seem to have resolved themselves, but a few students who logged on then are still seeing LaTeX code in their problems instead of nicely typeset formulas.
     Would this problem be avoided if I precreated -- or re-precreated -- the images at a low-traffic time? I'd try it myself rather than bugging everyone, but as I'm a guest on the server, I don't think I can go in and make the corrections to  l2hPrecreateSet.pl  that Arnie suggested above.
    Typeset "classic", as opposed to typeset2, does seem to work -- albeit slowly.

    Any help, including implementation of the above bug-fixes by authorized repairpeople, would be appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Mike McCooey
   

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userArnold K. Pizer - Re: l2hPrecreateSet.pl setup problem  blueArrow
11/11/2003; 9:53:14 AM (reads: 1110, responses: 0)

Hi Mike,

Late last week the disk partition on webwork2 where tmp files are stored filled up.  This obviously caused things to stop working.  We fixed that problem but I would guess the problems a few of your students are still having are related to that.  Maybe toward the end there was enought space to cache some error messages but not process the images and your students are seeing that cached messages.  I have totally cleaned out the tmp files for your mat 109 and 110 courses so that should solve all the problems.

Note that you can help the situation a little and also improve the performance of your course a little by doing some "house cleaning" every month or so.  Go to the house keeping page and then click on items 1 and 2 (cleanup and compress).  This just takes a second or two.  This only removes tmp files that will never be needed again so it leaves untouched the tmp files (png's) which store the images of equations.

 

Arnie

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