Forum archive 2000-2006

Dennis Keeler - Answer logs path error

Dennis Keeler - Answer logs path error

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
inactiveTopicAnswer logs path error topic started 10/2/2006; 4:53:32 PM
last post 10/3/2006; 3:11:34 PM
userDennis Keeler - Answer logs path error  blueArrow
10/2/2006; 4:53:32 PM (reads: 203, responses: 5)
Hi. I've just setup my own WeBWorK 2.3 server (starting from scratch with 2.3 on the newest Ubuntu 6.06). Everything seems to be working, except Utils.pm is trying to put that logs in the wrong place. Instead of using $webwork_dir/courses/course_name/logs/ it is trying to use $webwork_dir/$webwork_dir/courses/course_name/logs/ I'll give the error message below.

I made no changes to webwork.apache-config, so I'm using /opt/webwork/webwork2 as my $webwork_dir.

Here's a bit of background. I had trouble getting Apache and mod_perl to talk to each other at first. At least the perl-status URL wasn't working. So I tried installing apache-perl. That got Apache talking to Perl, but then the newly installed modules weren't showing up. So I uninstalled apache-perl (leaving some config files behind). I then reinstalled apache and mod_perl, and everything seemed to work.

Everything was fine, even with the answer logs. Then I got the "bright" idea to totally remove the config files for apache-perl. (I was trying to clean up the packages in the Synaptic Package Manager.) After that, the errors began. As I said, everything else seems to be working.

Thanks for your help. Here are the error messages. -Dennis

* Failed to create directory /opt/webwork/webwork2/opt/ with start directory /opt/webwork/webwork2 at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/Utils.pm line 264. * Failed to create directory /opt/webwork/webwork2/opt/webwork/ with start directory /opt/webwork/webwork2 at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/Utils.pm line 264. * Failed to create directory /opt/webwork/webwork2/opt/webwork/courses/ with start directory /opt/webwork/webwork2 at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/Utils.pm line 264. * Failed to create directory /opt/webwork/webwork2/opt/webwork/courses/muohio_mth153h/ with start directory /opt/webwork/webwork2 at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/Utils.pm line 264. * Failed to create directory /opt/webwork/webwork2/opt/webwork/courses/muohio_mth153h/logs/ with start directory /opt/webwork/webwork2 at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/Utils.pm line 264.

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userDennis Keeler - Re: Answer logs path error  blueArrow
10/2/2006; 5:03:32 PM (reads: 257, responses: 0)
Looking at the Paths again, I guess I should say Webwork is attempting to post to

$webwork_dir/$webwork_courses_dir/muohio_mth153h/logs/

when it should be posting to

$webwork_courses_dir/muohio_mth153h/logs/

I made a few changes to global.conf, but I still have

$webwork_courses_dir = "/opt/webwork/courses/";

Thanks. -Dennis

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userDennis Keeler - Re: Answer logs path error  blueArrow
10/2/2006; 6:53:14 PM (reads: 246, responses: 0)
OK, it now looks like only I am having this issue. That is, when I login as myself, the instructor, my answers are not saved and the warning message appears. Regular students have no trouble.

I tried setting up a symbolic link from

$webwork_dir/$webwork_courses_dir/muohio_mth153h/logs/

to

$webwork_courses_dir/muohio_mth153h/logs/

This got rid of the warning messages, but my answers are still not saved. Not that it really matters, but I just thought the maintainers would be interested. So maybe I've just found a bug in 2.3 that hadn't been noticed yet, since the instructor's past answers aren't really important.

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userMichael Gage - Re: Answer logs path error  blueArrow
10/2/2006; 7:03:31 PM (reads: 244, responses: 1)
Hard to tell if this is a bug or feature. Originally instructors answers weren't saved because, when they acted as students, you didn't want their answers to be saved since it would confuse later observers as to which answers were the instructor's and which were the student's.

This made sense at the time to me at least, but you are not the only one that has been confused by this behavior.

Perhaps we can make it so that in general an instructor's answers are saved but NOT when they are acting as someone else. Can anyone see probelms with that behavior?

-- Mike

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userDavide P. Cervone - Re: Answer logs path error  blueArrow
10/3/2006; 7:38:51 AM (reads: 291, responses: 0)
The original reason was actually to keep the size of the past-answers log smaller so that searching it would be faster.

There is a permission level that controls whose answers are recorded. It is "dont_log_past_answers" and is set to "professor" initially. If you set that to undef (I think) that will mean professor's answers are logged. (It might be that you have to set it to a value higher than professor, but I'm not sure -- haven't tried it.)

Note that at the moment, this will store answers even when you are trying problems via the "View it" links from the Library Browser or the various "view" buttons in the problem editor. So if you are doing problem development, this could fill up the answer log pretty fast, making later searches slower for no good reason. (This should probably be fixed.)

Davide

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userDennis Keeler - Re: Answer logs path error  blueArrow
10/3/2006; 3:11:34 PM (reads: 232, responses: 0)
Thanks for the history and information. I certainly don't care if I can see my past answers, so I'll consider the non-saving of them to be a "feature." I was just concerned that my students' past answers were not being saved (and I really like to see them!).

So now there is just the bug of trying to create a directory in the wrong place while a professor acts as themselves and submits an answer. Since I'm currently the only professor on my server, it was easy to make a workaround. But those warnings could cause concern to other instructors when a new class is created.

Looks like the removal of apache-perl config files was coincidental to me first seeing this behavior.

Thanks again for this great resource.

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