Forum archive 2000-2006

John Labute - Prob. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K

John Labute - Prob. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
inactiveTopicProb. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K topic started 8/23/2001; 8:58:49 PM
last post 9/29/2001; 9:33:23 AM
userJohn Labute - Prob. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K blueArrow
8/23/2001; 8:58:49 PM (reads: 1635, responses: 3)
After upgrading to version 1.6, get_hard_copy does not work with NT or Win2K using IE. I get the error message

getCourseEnvironment was called without specifying a course at /ww/webwork/system//Global.pm line 599

I did not experience this problem with version 1.5. I also tried it on your site with the same results. It did work however on an NT box using Netscape after accepting a popup box warning about a possible security problem.

John Labute labute@math.mcgill.ca

<| Post or View Comments |>

userArnold K. Pizer - Re: Prob. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K blueArrow
8/27/2001; 11:33:11 AM (reads: 2053, responses: 1)
This behavior is caused by changes we made because of a bug (which MS acknowledged) in MSIE 5.0 and 5.5 regarding how MSIE handled dynamically generated pdf output. It's possible that sp2 for MSIE5.5 fixes this bug.

A solution is to open up acrobat and go to File->Preferences->General and deselect "Web Browser Integration." This means that the pdf output will be displayed in a separate window.

However, this also means that you will get the open or save dialog box. When you see this dailog box, select "Open file from its current location." If you get the same dailog box again, select "Open file from its current location" again.

<| Post or View Comments |>

userJohn Labute - Re: Prob. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K blueArrow
9/19/2001; 11:36:11 AM (reads: 2367, responses: 0)
The problem occurs with postscript and tex files as well when we attempt to download the assignment in any of these forms. One can view the assignments OK(after a few tries) and print them.

<| Post or View Comments |>

userJohn Labute - Re: Prob. with get_hard_copy under NT and Win2K blueArrow
9/29/2001; 9:33:23 AM (reads: 1936, responses: 0)
The get_hard_copy problem appears to be a timing problem. The script WelcomeAction.pl was timing out. When we made the following changes in the WelcomeAction.pl script

$main::TIME_OUT_CONSTANT = 0; #instead of = 60 $main::DOWNLOAD_TIME_OUT_CONSTANT = 0; #instaed of = 300 $main::CLASS_DOWNLOAD_TIME_OUT_CONSTANT = 0; # instead of = 1200

the problem disappeared for NT and Win2000 but still seems to affect Windows Millenium boxes with IE.

We suspect that it's the TIME_OUT_CONSTANT that is triggering but it really didn't seem to be 60 seconds. Perhaps there is a more subtle bug that's causing the alarm. A another clue may be in the fact that selecting the view option and then the save option in the popup window resulted in the correct file being downloaded.

John Labute

<| Post or View Comments |>