11 April 2014, 21:16

Hello,

I am struggling with a cron job problem in Mahara 1.8.2, Windows Server 2012. Couple of days ago I have configured the Moodle and Mahara connection in our productive environment. Everything works fine until yesterday - the cron job in Mahara is hanging up, at the time when preasumbly some users trying to import content from Moodle.

[11-Apr-2014 00:07:18 Europe/Berlin] [INF] ee (D:\inetpub\wwwroot\mahara\lib\cron.php:30) ---------- cron running Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:07:18 +0200 ----------
[11-Apr-2014 00:07:18 Europe/Berlin] [INF] ee (D:\inetpub\wwwroot\mahara\lib\cron.php:137) Running core cron check_imap_for_bounces
[11-Apr-2014 00:07:18 Europe/Berlin] [INF] ee (D:\inetpub\wwwroot\mahara\lib\cron.php:501) Skipping long-running cron job core_import_process_queue (Thu, 10 Apr 2014 16:57:20 +0200).

It seems like that the cron job is hanging up on an import activity. I found out, that by deleting the following line in Mahara database, config table , will enable the cron job to work without any problems.

_cron_lock_core_import_process_queue.

Unfortunately it works only for the next import of content.

I really appreciate for any suggestions.

14 April 2014, 19:40

Hi Paul,

I have no experience with the import feature, but you could delete the entry and trigger the cron manually, while capturing the error log to get a better idea about what causes the problem. To trigger the cron job manually, call {url_to_mahara}/lib/cron.php - preferably from a browser where you are not logged in, so no user is recognized. 

BTW: This only affects the import job. All other cron jobs should not be affected by lock-entry/errors in the import-cron job. 

Cheers,

Tobias

14 April 2014, 23:19

Dear Tobias,

first of all thank you very much for your suggestion. Unfortunately I tried this couple of times, and running cron job manually directly from the internet browser did not produce any extra log errors which will be useful to find out the reason of this issue.

Regards,

Pawel

16 April 2014, 8:48

Since the announcement of the 'Heartbleed' bug - people everywhere have been updating their certificates for all manner of things  - could either Mahara or Moodle side need to update their certificates so they can still connect/talk to each other?

16 April 2014, 11:46

Hi Paul

We are experiencing the same problem.

We first noticed it late last week. Three times now we have had to delete the locked cron job.  Cron then runs without error for a while but then we get the Cron is not running message appear again.

We have been following the suggestions in this forum post for identifying the locks and then deleting them.

https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=4101#post18386

I'm also not sure what the consequence of this not running is?  Content still seems to export from Moodle to Mahara without error.

We are running Mahara 1.8.0 on a ubuntu server, not sure of the version.

Thanks

Anita

16 April 2014, 17:33

Hi Anita,

well, it is good to know, that I'm not the only person with such a problem. I have had done exactly the same steps which are described in the link which you have posted. Since two days everything works fine, but the reason of this problem is still not defined. I assume that this must be connected with some export activity in Moodle. Today, latest tomorrow I will update Mahara into the newest 1.9.0 version. Maybe this will help...

16 April 2014, 19:03

Hi Paul

It will interesting to see how you go with the upgrade and if that fixes it.  We weren't planning on upgrading for a while yet but we probably could if needed, well, at least upgrading to 1.8.2

20 April 2014, 16:39

Hi Paul,

When you delete the lock and it runs fine the next time round is there an error/warning messages in the logs for the import_process_queue?

Cheers

Robert

28 April 2014, 11:58

Hi Robert

Where abouts are the logs for us to check that?

We have having the same problem and it just seems to be coming and going..

Thanks -- Anita

28 April 2014, 12:55

Hi Anita,

The output for your cron log may either be going to your dataroot/log/ directory - the dataroot directory will be defined in your config.php file in your web root.

Or it might be going to the error log for the web server - eg if you are using apache2 webserver the error log for your site may live under /var/log/apache2/

Cheers

Robert