UsingWW: Barbara Margolius - welcomeAction.pl error

$inactiveTopic$ welcomeAction.pl error

topic started 8/31/2000; 8:58:59 PM
last post 9/19/2000; 3:00:56 PM

$user$ Barbara Margolius - welcomeAction.pl error $blueArrow$
8/31/2000; 8:58:59 PM (reads: 2873, responses: 8)

There is some sort of problem with welcomeAction.pl. Here is an error message concerning it from the IE browser. It also has some problem under Netscape. I haven't been able to get consistently the same problem, but sometimes the do_problem_set button produces nothing but a blank window with generic webwork header info.

content-type: text/html Error: /ww/webwork/system/cgi/cgi-scripts/welcomeAction.pl Can't rename /ww/htdocs/tmp1/csu-mth181priv/l2h/ -95383/95383output.html

I'm not sure the failure of the problems to appear on screen is due to the problem reported in the error message; I have seen the problems fail to appear on screen four times. It seems to follow the attempted use of the problem list button.

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$user$ Barbara Margolius - failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/12/2000; 11:14:00 AM (reads: 3357, responses: 7)

The do_problem set button continues to fail sporadically. Students working on problem sets who work on the problems then enter another webwork page through their browser and then attempt to return to the do_problem set action are sometimes confronted with a blank page.

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$user$ Michael Gage - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/12/2000; 2:29:46 PM (reads: 3859, responses: 6)

Hi Barbara,

Let me see if I understand the situation:

Suppose the students go to a problem page and then use the Back button on their browsers to try to return to the page where all of the problems are listed (the "problem set page"). They will probably not be able to view it, because the browser will not have kept a cached copy of that dynamic page. Even if they do get a copy of the problem set page, the information about which problems they have correctly solved would be out of date, since the page was constructed before they had done the most recent problems. To avoid getting old information, the browser will not save copies of dynamic information. (The exact behavior depends on the browser, the platform and the preference settings, so it is hard to predict for sure what will happen in each instance.)

Using the "Problem set" button on each problem page instead of the Back button of the browser window, will insure that you receive a fresh copy of the problem set page, with up to date information.

Let me know if this solves the problem you and your students are experiencing.

Take care,

Mike

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$user$ Barbara Margolius - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/13/2000; 7:56:43 AM (reads: 4383, responses: 5)

Students can log out completely and go back in and fail to have the problem sets appear. So even if using the back button instead of the buttons within webwork is involved there is a problem with webwork being unable to forgive this transgression and reset itself.

The first problem set is due today. I'm preparing for riots.

On the other hand, the students who have gotten the system to work (almost all of them who have tried), like it very much. It is also generating much interest from the faculty.

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$user$ Michael Gage - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/13/2000; 8:39:26 AM (reads: 4885, responses: 4)

Hi Barbara,

Can you send me ( gage@math.rochester.edu ) the URL of the course you are teaching and any information on what students do when they get this failure? In particular are they on slow speed dial-up modems? I'll try to reproduce it myself -- then I've got a better chance of understanding it.

Good luck with the riots. :-) I've had a few of those myself from time to time. I'm glad the other students are finding WeBWorK useful.

Take care,

Mike

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$user$ Barbara Margolius - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/13/2000; 2:23:49 PM (reads: 5432, responses: 3)

Here is the URL http://webwork2.math.rochester.edu/csu-mth181/

Here is an error message that I think is related to the problem: content-type: text/html Error: /ww/webwork/system/cgi/cgi-scripts/welcomeAction.pl Can't rename /ww/htdocs/tmp1/csu-mth181priv/l2h/ -95383/95383output.html

I can't presently describe the precise chain of events that leads the problems to temporarily disappear, but I have asked the students to try to record what they are doing when it happens. I have had it happen to me too, but I cannot replicate at will.

The first thing to happen is the problems disappear. Then in a subsequent attempt an error message like the above appears. Then it is fine again. But there may be many failed attempts before it reappears.

The problem has occurred when students dial in from home, but it has also occurred on campus on a ntework of antiquated macs running netscape 4.05, on my Alpha running IE4.0 and on Gateway PCs running Netscape 4.5.

The riots weren't too bad.

Thanks.

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$user$ Michael Gage - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/13/2000; 2:58:57 PM (reads: 5958, responses: 2)

Hi Barbara,

Aha! I recognize part of the error message at least. It comes when the latex2HTML process quits in the middle of translating tex to HTML. The file gets left in an awkward state and various strange things can happen.

Sometimes you have to delete the directory (95383) in order to get it to display properly again. One temporary fix is to have the student switch to formatted text mode instead of typeset mode. This doesn't use the latex2HTML script.

Another question -- are you precreating the problem sets for the students? This speeds up the presentation of typeset mode and helps to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

I'm also alerting Arnie and Robert and David to this problem. They deal more with the latex2HTML display. They may have further suggestions.

Take care,

Mike

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$user$ Barbara Margolius - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/13/2000; 4:17:15 PM (reads: 6530, responses: 1)

I'm not sure how to precreate the problem sets, so I guess I am not precreating them.

Does the latex2html problem account for why typeset answers do not appear in preview mode also? (They don't. Just the funny little I'm not loaded graphic icon appears.)

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$user$ David Etlinger - Re: failure of do_problemset button $blueArrow$
9/19/2000; 3:00:56 PM (reads: 7147, responses: 0)

Problem sets are precreated using l2hPrecreateSet.pl, located in the scripts directory of system. To run it, go to your course's template directory and use the following command: "nice /ww/webwork/system/scripts/l2hPrecreateSet.pl course_name setFile.def >& setFile.log &" (you can always see the syntax of a script by running the script with no parameters). The nice command runs the process at a low priority. The log file, "setFile.log", will be placed in the templates directory. This process will take a while to run.

Running "tail -f setFile.log" will show what is happening. Running "tail setFile.log" after the process concludes should show something like

In for key = 93554 .... i = 15 In for key = 93554 .... i = 16 In for key = 93554 .... i = 17 In for key = 93554 .... i = 18 In for key = 93554 .... i = 19 In for key = 93554 .... i = 20

This took 221.016666666666666667 minutes to precreate /ww/webwork/system/courses/course_name/templates/setFile.def

You can figure on it taking 5 seconds per student per problem (a long time for a 300 student course).

If the process fails to complete, some cleanup will need to be done. Specifically, in the temp directory for your course, under l2h, will be a directory for that problem set. Under that will be a list of directories, one for each student. These will need to be removed.

Finally, the script l2hPrecreateProb.pl is obsolete.

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Barbara Margolius - welcomeAction.pl error

Barbara Margolius - welcomeAction.pl error