PREP 2015 Question Authoring - Archived

Students can't log on but are registered in course?

Students can't log on but are registered in course?

by tim Payer -
Number of replies: 3
Hello,

I am trying to find out why my students cant access webwork, Can you help?

1.)  They have been assigned a homework set.
2.) The homework set is open.
3.) They are enrolled in the course section and have email prefixes and student id numbers with which to apply with.

When i try to log on as my student I also can not access webwork:
the message "Authentication failed" is its response.

Can you help me trouble shoot for a likely oversight that i have made?

Thanks,  Tim
In reply to tim Payer

Re: Students can't log on but are registered in course?

by tim Payer -
If this helps:

The course name is:

ft-humboldt-42560

Thanks, tim
In reply to tim Payer

Re: Students can't log on but are registered in course?

by Paul Pearson -
Hi Tim,

"Authentication failed" usually means that the student is unable to log in to the webwork course using their username and password.  You should log in as a professor and reset their password.  Then, try to log in using as the student using the password you assigned them.  If that works, send the student an email with their new (temporary) password.  If it does not work, please give us more information (e.g., What server are you using?  Is centralized authentication used?)

Best regards,

Paul Pearson
In reply to tim Payer

Re: Students can't log on but are registered in course?

by Danny Glin -
A couple of suggestions:
  1. The login.log file keeps a record of all login attempts, and may provide some information as to why the logins are failing.  You can access it from the File Manager within WeBWorK by clicking the "^" button at the top, then double-clicking on "logs/" and then double-clicking on login.log.  If the message says something like "Authentication Failed ...", then it is likely that the system is not recognizing the username and password.
  2. How did you enter the students?  If it was from a text file (.lst), then the issue that usually gets me is that the last column needs to contain the encrypted password, rather than the plain text password.  If you want the password to be the student's ID number, then leave this last column blank, and WeBWorK will set the starting password to be the ID number.  As far as I know there is currently no way to set a default plain text password for each student using the Import Students tool other than to leave the password field blank, in which case whatever is in the student ID field will become the password.
Hope this helps!
Danny