Feb 7, 2014

Work Life: Moodling Around in Windows

We have a couple Moodle servers running at our facilities. One of those runs on an older Server 2003 box and is running v2.1.2 of Moodle. Since Moodle is now up to 2.6.1 (at the time of this post), I thought it would be a good idea to get the Windows install up to date.

The first thing I had to do was stop Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Easy enough, usually. But, in this case, mysqld.exe would not quit. I finally had to force it down.

The next thing I did was to delete a couple large log files:
  • In the apache\logs\ folder, delete "error.log" (mine was 90GB!!)
  • In the mysql\data\ folder, delete "mysql_error.log" (mine was 1.5GB)
At that point, I copied my "Moodle" folder to another location.

Once that was done, I started MySql again and fired up the trial version of "Navicat" in order to do a MySql backup. Though, I believe this is an unnecessary step since everything in my Moodle installation falls under one "moodle" folder. Better safe than sorry.

Because I was running 2.1.2, I had to upgrade to 2.2.11 before moving to 2.6.1.

I deleted everything in my "moodle\server\moodle" folder EXCEPT for a folder I had created to store some external files and the config.php file.

I started Moodle (apache, mysql, php) again and went into admin mode to upgrade. NOTE: I found instructions online that said to copy the blocks, mod, and theme folders from your old install to the new one. That did NOT work for me. When I tried that, my install never would give me the "Upgrade" option.

Well, in case anyone else runs into this, here is what I did:

Added the following lines to the end of my moodle\config.php:
ini_set ('display_errors', 'on');
ini_set ('log_errors', 'on');
ini_set ('display_startup_errors', 'on');
ini_set ('error_reporting', E_ALL);

That gave me an error about a moodle\search folder not existing. Sure enough. That folder was in 2.1 but not the 2.2 distro. I copied it out of my 2.1 and at least got through things.

I notice it is also not in the 2.6 distro, so I assumed I would have the same problem. I ventured forth anyway. I copied my now-upgraded 2.2.11 folder out and replaced it with the 2.6 folder from the download. I then put back my config.php and any folders I had specifically created at the file level.

Once that was done, I fired up the XAMPP and went to my site for set-up.

Everything seems okay, though 2.6 is WWAAAAYYY slower than previous versions. There are a few lines of code that can be used in php to help this, supposedly, so I will give that a shot.


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