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external authentication system error

external authentication system error

by Ted Boggs -
Number of replies: 8
My one user is experiencing the following error intermittently when saving in the Homework Sets Editor since updating to 2013:

Set Detail 2 for set MAAexamples

WWDemo uses an external authentication system (e.g., Oncourse, CAS, Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, etc.). Please return to system you used and try again.

He does not get this consistently, but the errors are frequent. I've looked at all of the logs I can find, but nothing stands out to me which might explain the behavior.

We use Shibboleth for authentication. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Ted

In reply to Ted Boggs

Re: external authentication system error

by Danny Glin -
If the error is intermittent, my first suggestion is to restart apache. It's possible that one of the apache processes has some bad configuration loaded, so it's only appearing when that particular process is serving the request.

IIRC that error message only appears in the LTI configuration, and only if "$external_auth=1;" is set. If you are not using LTI, then make sure that authenticity_LTI.conf is not being loaded in localOverrides.conf.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: external authentication system error

by Ted Boggs -
Thanks, Danny. Restarting apache did not resolve the issue. LTI does not appear to be enabled in localOverrides.conf. This is the only reference I could find to LTI in that file:

#include("conf/authen_LTI.conf");


In reply to Danny Glin

Re: external authentication system error

by Ted Boggs -
Might this be a bug? Here are easily reproducible steps to get the error on our installation:

1. Select course
2. Choose Homework Sets Editor
3. Choose problems to edit
4. Without making any change to anything, go to the bottom of the page and press
Save Changes
5. The first time the response is simply the same list again, and this response is correct
6. Then again at the bottom press Save Changes and the error occurs. And if not the second, then the third or fourth.
In reply to Ted Boggs

Re: external authentication system error

by Danny Glin -
I'm not able to reproduce this on my system, but we are using a variety of authentication methods, so our configuration is a little different.

It's possible that this might have something to do with your Shibboleth authentication. Unfortunately I have no knowledge of Shibboleth, so I can't be of much help there.

I find the inconsistency a little odd. Does this only happen on the Homework Sets Editor page?
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: external authentication system error

by Ted Boggs -
Yes, apparently, that is the only place it happens, and never on the first save.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: external authentication system error

by Ted Boggs -
Some new information from my user:

" If one goes to the Homework Sets Editor and presses SAVE once, the error mechanism is in some sense turned on, but the error itself does not happen. THEN clicking on any of a lot of things will trigger the error, such as clicking on Student Progress on the left side bar. One gets the same error message.

The reason I found that noteworthy is that clicking Student Progress reads data but does not save data, so far as I know. So whatever happens is associated with a file action, but it is not necessarily a save action."


In reply to Ted Boggs

Re: external authentication system error

by Niall Madden -
Hi all,
Just wondering if there was any progress on this? We seem to have exactly the same issue (See https://webwork.maa.org/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=4881)
when using Shibboleth authentication, and have no idea of how to resolve it.
Thanks,
Niall.
In reply to Niall Madden

Re: external authentication system error

by Dan Christensen -

We have been experiencing a similar problem when using the homework sets editor with external authentication, and it was fixed by using

$session_management_via = "key";