** Using WeBWorK **

If a student types in an answer, moves to another problem and then returns to the previous one, the old answer is gone (answer box is blank). We have $pg{options}{showOldAnswers} = 1; in global.conf and the Show Past Answers page does seem to have all of the students previous work.

Any ideas?

Ben Pollina University of Hartford

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Any answers entered before the upgrade are being shown when I return to a problem page.

I've also noticed that when I get an email from a student, the last_answer is shown in base64 encoding.

Ben Pollina

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It seems to me that I remember running in to this phenomenon at some point. (I know that sometime around this time we switched to encoding the last_answer with base64 encoding to prevent occasional data corruption. I think we fixed this bug or a similar bug but I haven't found the exact reference in bugzilla yet.

I'd feel a bit more comfortable trouble shooting this is if you could upgrade to rel-2-3-dev which is just coming out -- that we way I know that you have all the lastest fixes. (and if there are bugs I have them too so I can get right on them.)

Since you are already upgrading this will only be a moderate hassle. You will have to make changes to global.conf and database.conf so I recommend saving a backup copy of the entire webwork2/conf directory before upgrading to use for reference.

You can email me if you'd like me to try to look at your installation from here. (gage at math.rochester.edu)

Take care,

Mike

cvs -dP update -r rel-2-3-dev will do upgrade from the CVS if you your current installation is installed from there.

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Thanks for your response. Since I wrote my earlier messages, I have found references to this problem elsewhere on the discussion board (msgReader$3717, 9/4/05). Those references suggest that upgrading to the 2-1-3 patches should cure the problem. When we upgraded late this summer, we decided not to go to WW2.2 because we were somewhat timid about changing our existing courses over to sql_single, and now I'm even more reluctant since our semester is underway.

I'd like to try to install the 2-1-3 patches, but I've never installed using CVS. What I've read indicates that it is possible to do this even if I didn't do the original installation via CVS, but I can't quite figure out how to go about it. Am I right about this, and if so, can you tell me how to use CVS to install the patches?

Ben

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From your base webwork2 directory, run:

cvs -q up -dP -r rel-2-1-patches

Then switch to your base pg directory, and run the same command. Then restart Apache.

If you want to go back to 2.1.3, follow the same process, but run:

cvs -q up -dP -r rel-2-1-3

Hope this helps.
-sam

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We have suggestions for making this switch when you are ready.

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I finally got around trying Sam's suggestion above. I ran cvs -q up -dP -r rel-2-1-patches as root in /opt/webwork2. It produced the following:

The immediate response was the following warning

cvs update: warning: failed to open /root/.cvspass for reading: No such file or directory

It continued for awhile and then issued the following

cvs update: warning: cannot open /webwork/cvs/system/CVSROOT/val-tags read/write: Permission denied

Again, it continued until the following

Warning: Permanently added 'cvs.webwork.rochester.edu,128.151.231.10' (DSA) to the list of known hosts. anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu's password: Permission denied, please try again.

I didn't know the password, so it aborted.

Any suggestions? I can send you the entire response to the command, if you think that might help.

Ben

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What are the contents of the CVS/Root files under your webwork2 directory? A while ago, we switched from using SSH-based anonymous CVS to the normal pserver method. So if your CVS/Root files look like

:ext:anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu:/webwork/cvs/system

then you need to change those files to

:pserver:anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu:/webwork/cvs/system

Easy way to do that:

find . -regex '.*/CVS/Root' -print0 | xargs -0 perl -pi -e 's/^:ext:/:pserver:/'

Hope this helps.
-sam

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All the CVS/Root files have the pserver designation.

Ben

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That's odd, because it's definitely trying to use SSH:

Warning: Permanently added 'cvs.webwork.rochester.edu,128.151.231.10' (DSA) to the list of known hosts.

What output do you get if you omit the -q switch?
-sam

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I don't know how to format this, so I apologize, if it comes across garbled. Here is the output I get now (with the -q switch).

[root@mathbeta webwork2]# cvs -q up -dP -r rel-2-1-patches
? M140Library
? M144Library
? M145Library
? M220Library
? M240Library
? M242Library
? RochesterLibrary
? conf/database.conf
? conf/global.conf
? conf/webwork.apache-config
? htdocs/tmp/equations/03
? htdocs/tmp/equations/04
? htdocs/tmp/equations/06
? htdocs/tmp/equations/07
? htdocs/tmp/equations/08
? htdocs/tmp/equations/09
? htdocs/tmp/equations/0d
? htdocs/tmp/equations/0e
? htdocs/tmp/equations/10
? htdocs/tmp/equations/12
? htdocs/tmp/equations/13
? htdocs/tmp/equations/16
? htdocs/tmp/equations/1a
? htdocs/tmp/equations/22
? htdocs/tmp/equations/23
? htdocs/tmp/equations/26
? htdocs/tmp/equations/28
? htdocs/tmp/equations/29
? htdocs/tmp/equations/2c
? htdocs/tmp/equations/2e
? htdocs/tmp/equations/32
? htdocs/tmp/equations/33
? htdocs/tmp/equations/36
? htdocs/tmp/equations/38
? htdocs/tmp/equations/3a
? htdocs/tmp/equations/3e
? htdocs/tmp/equations/40
? htdocs/tmp/equations/46
? htdocs/tmp/equations/47
? htdocs/tmp/equations/4b
? htdocs/tmp/equations/4d
? htdocs/tmp/equations/4e
? htdocs/tmp/equations/51
? htdocs/tmp/equations/55
? htdocs/tmp/equations/58
? htdocs/tmp/equations/59
? htdocs/tmp/equations/5a
? htdocs/tmp/equations/5b
? htdocs/tmp/equations/5d
? htdocs/tmp/equations/5e
? htdocs/tmp/equations/5f
? htdocs/tmp/equations/60
? htdocs/tmp/equations/62
? htdocs/tmp/equations/66
? htdocs/tmp/equations/67
? htdocs/tmp/equations/68
? htdocs/tmp/equations/6b
? htdocs/tmp/equations/70
? htdocs/tmp/equations/73
? htdocs/tmp/equations/7a
? htdocs/tmp/equations/7b
? htdocs/tmp/equations/7c
? htdocs/tmp/equations/7f
? htdocs/tmp/equations/84
? htdocs/tmp/equations/85
? htdocs/tmp/equations/86
? htdocs/tmp/equations/8a
? htdocs/tmp/equations/8c
? htdocs/tmp/equations/90
? htdocs/tmp/equations/94
? htdocs/tmp/equations/95
? htdocs/tmp/equations/97
? htdocs/tmp/equations/9a
? htdocs/tmp/equations/9e
? htdocs/tmp/equations/9f
? htdocs/tmp/equations/a0
? htdocs/tmp/equations/a1
? htdocs/tmp/equations/a3
? htdocs/tmp/equations/a5
? htdocs/tmp/equations/a6
? htdocs/tmp/equations/a8
? htdocs/tmp/equations/aa
? htdocs/tmp/equations/ae
? htdocs/tmp/equations/af
? htdocs/tmp/equations/b1
? htdocs/tmp/equations/b2
? htdocs/tmp/equations/b5
? htdocs/tmp/equations/b6
? htdocs/tmp/equations/bd
? htdocs/tmp/equations/be
? htdocs/tmp/equations/bf
? htdocs/tmp/equations/c0
? htdocs/tmp/equations/c2
? htdocs/tmp/equations/c3
? htdocs/tmp/equations/c4
? htdocs/tmp/equations/c6
? htdocs/tmp/equations/c9
? htdocs/tmp/equations/ca
? htdocs/tmp/equations/cc
? htdocs/tmp/equations/ce
? htdocs/tmp/equations/d3
? htdocs/tmp/equations/d8
? htdocs/tmp/equations/d9
? htdocs/tmp/equations/da
? htdocs/tmp/equations/db
? htdocs/tmp/equations/dd
? htdocs/tmp/equations/df
? htdocs/tmp/equations/e2
? htdocs/tmp/equations/e4
? htdocs/tmp/equations/e6
? htdocs/tmp/equations/e7
? htdocs/tmp/equations/e9
? htdocs/tmp/equations/ea
? htdocs/tmp/equations/eb
? htdocs/tmp/equations/ed
? htdocs/tmp/equations/f3
? htdocs/tmp/equations/f6
? htdocs/tmp/equations/f8
? htdocs/tmp/equations/f9
? htdocs/tmp/equations/fb
? htdocs/tmp/equations/fe
? logs/timing.log
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.06WHNyR4
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.13kW64Pf
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.1kc99fP2
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.2EZjRsVE
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.2pu7qaLX
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.2uWENWfy
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.3Kx79XGw
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.5Ac89OUG
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.6VYwPcT2
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.8soOb2JL
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.90VgEVaz
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.AypYQ0PF
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.C1a6A7tg
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.DXapMP3U
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.Ed5ZF8TS
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.F9eY93xh
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.Gnyt8Ta4
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.HY6P5RdX
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.Jc75oDmu
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.JjKMMQDD
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.JveviDkj
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.KxwIVFwK
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.KzU6AXYG
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.LusUWC2J
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.NRyvs8Ta
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.RhgZvUXN
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.T2A7ftAl
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.TPNkCYJG
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.U3uCdGeh
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.XKiq0X6Z
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.Xba2bfbr
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.awTI1gCN
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.blrwhd64
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.c3D58Kyn
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.cHHKoNT3
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.dyN4gxWQ
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.g4IzqtSq
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.g8SDgmd5
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.hjUcC8hS
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.iuRe9mZ3
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.j3FcAcAW
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.jqyY7pqz
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.lNkDX2hS
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.mKCqGWSJ
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.mXU3HnXn
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.n1YcN7TM
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.nH2sMz9Q
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.qBhvW6ts
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.rVG7dMWm
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.t7O7qqsZ
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.th6UVLBO
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.uDAozCmF
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.uPO2XMv7
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.uaoMPpSy
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.vMAspEUd
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.vuf9rSbz
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.vzugLeUK
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.wBgdX9Ib
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.wTUVFmQX
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.woCpiiKY
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.xyF690Sf
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.yH3MJxP7
? tmp/webwork-hardcopy.yPoXF4Qg
cvs update: warning: cannot open /webwork/cvs/system/CVSROOT/val-tags read/write: Permission denied
M bin/gif2eps
M bin/gif2png
M bin/png2eps
cvs update: move away courses/adminClasslist.lst; it is in the way
C courses/adminClasslist.lst
cvs update: move away courses/defaultClasslist.lst; it is in the way
C courses/defaultClasslist.lst
cvs update: move away courses/modelCourse/course.conf; it is in the way
C courses/modelCourse/course.conf
M lib/WeBWorK/Constants.pm
anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu's password: 
Permission denied, please try again.
anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu's password: 
Permission denied, please try again.
anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu's password: 
Permission denied (publickey,password).
cvs [update aborted]: end of file from server (consult above messages if any)

The output with the -q switch removed looks the same to me.

Ben

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Thanks for your attention to this. I'd like to learn how to use CVS.

Turns out I was wrong. There were a few CVS/Root files that didn't have the pserver designation. I changed them and the CVS update command completed, although there were still a few warnings along the way. This one in particular seemed cause for concern.

cvs update: warning: cannot open /webwork/cvs/system/CVSROOT/val-tags read/write: Permission denied.

Is this blocking something that needs to happen?

Also, when I went to execute the upgrade command in the pg directory, I was asked for a password. I checked the CVS/Root files, and they all contained :ext:gage@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu:/webwork/cvs/system. Do I need to change these to :pserver:anoncvs as well?

Ben

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cvs update: warning: cannot open /webwork/cvs/system/CVSROOT/val-tags read/write: Permission denied. Is this blocking something that needs to happen?

It's nothing to worry about.

Do I need to change these to :pserver:anoncvs as well?

Yes.
-sam

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