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Odd Occasional Error

Odd Occasional Error

by Jeff Holt -
Number of replies: 4
Hi All,

Over the summer we upgraded to Version 2.4.1 on a new server running Apache 2.2. Lately I have been getting reports from users with the error shown below (I just got this earlier).

This only happens from time to time, and typically goes away when the page is reloaded. But the frequency of reports has increased, which worries me. Any thoughts?

--Jeff

********************************

WeBWorK error

An error occured while processing your request. For help, please send mail to this site's webmaster (jeff@virginia.edu), including all of the following information as well as what what you were doing when the error occured.

Sun Sep 14 20:21:06 2008

Warning messages

Error messages

Can't locate object method "instance" via package "DateTime::TimeZone::America::New_York" at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/DateTime/TimeZone.pm line 95.
Call stack

The information below can help locate the source of the problem.

in WeBWorK::PG::Local::new called at line 52 of /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/PG.pm
in WeBWorK::PG::new called at line 231 of /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/ContentGenerator/ProblemSet.pm
in WeBWorK::ContentGenerator::ProblemSet::info called at line 152 of /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/Template.pm
in WeBWorK::Template::template called at line 486 of /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/ContentGenerator.pm
in WeBWorK::ContentGenerator::content called at line 194 of /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/ContentGenerator.pm
in WeBWorK::ContentGenerator::go called at line 353 of /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK.pm
In reply to Jeff Holt

Re: Odd Occasional Error

by Michael Gage -
Is your CPAN copy of DateTime up to date?

It might not have been updated automatically when you went to apache2.2.

Less likely, but still something I'd check, is whether you have defined the time zone in global.conf ("America/New_York") -- DateTime is supposed to be able to deduce the time zone from the server but it doesn't always succeed.

Hope this helps.

-- Mike
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Odd Occasional Error

by Jeff Holt -
I read some of the discussion about DateTime on the forum, but since we have a new server I assume that we are up to date on modules. However, I just remembered that our new installation is running on a virtual Linux installation that is sitting on a Unix cluster that has been around for a while, so maybe there is an issue with the DateTime module. I'll check with the system administrator.

Thanks for the help.

PS: The time zone in global.conf is set to "America/New_York".

--Jeff
In reply to Jeff Holt

Re: Odd Occasional Error: Update

by Jeff Holt -
It turns out that we had version 0.41 of the DateTime Perl module. The system admin just updated to 0.4304. We'll see if that solves the problem.

Thanks again for the help, Mike.

--Jeff
In reply to Jeff Holt

Re: Odd Occasional Error: Update

by Michael Gage -
Make sure the server is restarted after the update.

The fact that the error occurs only occasionally could mean that some of the apache server children handling the request have correct versions of the new module and some have versions of the old one. As the children die off and are replaced the behavior will skew toward the "newer" version of the module. If the children handle many requests before being killed off then this could take a long time.