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Webwork warning

Webwork warning

by Siman Wong -
Number of replies: 7

Our IT staff just updated our webwork server to v 2.15.  While creating new courses for the fall semester I made a mistake, so I deleted that course using the web interface and tried again.  But in the second time I got, besides the message "Successfully created the course ***", the following WeBWork Warnings:

  • Replacing old data for [coursename] status: D at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/ContentGenerator/CourseAdmin.pm line 843.
In the past I had difficulty deleting courses using the web interface and I had to ssh into the webwork server to manually delete certain files.  But being away from campus I couldn't find my notes, and when I ssh into the server after I deleted the course (and before I recreated it) I couldn't find file/directory for that course (but I didn't check for hidden/dot files).  What should I do to resolve this issue?

THANKS!


In reply to Siman Wong

Re: Webwork warning

by Sean Fitzpatrick -

You can safely ignore that, I think. I've had the same warning in this situation.

All it means is that you created the course using the same course ID as the previous attempt, so there was an existing database entry for that course ID.

Making the new course will overwrite the existing data. But you don't care, because (a) there wasn't really any data to begin with, and (b) you deleted the course containing that data.

In reply to Sean Fitzpatrick

Re: Webwork warning

by Siman Wong -
Thanks! Being a paranoid person, I will sleep better if I could get rid of this error message. Based on your reply, sounds like that we should clear the database entry after the initial delete before I recreate the course. Is there a safe way to do that?

I remember running into this issue in earlier versions of WW, and I had to use delcourse to clean up leave over stuffs. But I couldn't remember how to do that...
In reply to Siman Wong

Re: Webwork warning

by Sean Fitzpatrick -

I never touch the database and probably should not be trusted to do so even if I had a good reason to.

I'm pretty sure the warning is just that new course data is going to overwrite old course data you don't care about.

I've never done anything about it and I think it's been fine?

The alternative is to make a slight change to the course name the second time around.

In reply to Sean Fitzpatrick

Re: Webwork warning

by Andras Balogh -

I am recreating annually previously archived and deleted courses, and in about 10% of the time (10 out of 100) I receive this warning. So far I have not seen anything else wrong, but I do wander if archiving/deleting some courses did not work completely.

In reply to Andras Balogh

Re: Webwork warning

by Andras Balogh -

I just deleted a course and noticed that in the admin course class list editor the professor account of the deleted course is still there, but instead of Enrolled status it now shows Drop status.

Manually deleting the professor account from the admin course eliminates the warning. 

I don't see what the reason is to keep a deleted course's professor in the database. 

In reply to Andras Balogh

Re: Webwork warning

by Glenn Rice -
Anytime that you create a course and add an instructor to it when the course is created, a corresponding user is created in the admin course with the username username_courseid. When a course is deleted, webwork changes the status of that user to dropped. This is something that webwork has always done.

We have talked about this, and I think that we are going to stop creating a user in the admin course entirely. There really is no point in these users being there. They have no real purpose.