20 December 2014, 0:29

Hi everyone,

Our situation with Mahara 1.9.2 :

We have recently migrate our Moodle from 1.9 to 2.5 and there was a Mahoodle mecanism for our 1.9 users. I have created a new institution for this new instance of Moodle 2.5 and I have forced those users from the old institution to the new one.

Everything seems perfect except the fact that my users that came from Moodle 2.5 are identified as a new users. So there's a new account... All the artefacts are attributed to another deprecated user.

My question :

How do I tell Mahara that those users are already known as Moodle 1.9's users.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Patrick

20 December 2014, 13:18

Hi Patrick

I had a very similar migration problem a couple of years ago.  I found that the Mahara users database table had duplicated all the accounts.

I'm sorry that the exact details are hazy at this distance but the only way I could solve the issue was to run sql queries on the database to re-link the users to their old artefacts/accounts.  Once that was done and tested I was able to delete all the newly created accounts based on creation date.

I do remember that once I'd got a good look at how the users were connected in Mahara's tables it wasn't very difficult ;)

If you don't have the skills yourself you will probably need someone to help you (like your local Moodle/Mahara partner).

Hope this helps.

Richard.

06 January 2015, 4:09

Hi Richard,

I have over 250 accounts in Mahara. I will only use this method if I have no other solution.

Beside I have to wait until users connect a first time before changing their accounts. Not easy.

Thank you for your help.

Patrick

29 December 2014, 21:43

Hello Patrick,

Do your Moodle 2.5 usernames differ from the ones you had in Moodle 1.9? If so, you could upload a CSV file with all the users and assign them the new Moodle username in the field "remoteuser". Also, do the users that you migrated into your new institution have the Moodle 2.5 auth method associated with them? You can check that easily on the "User search" page.

Once you confirmed that, you can check what remote username your current users have assigned by going to Administration -> Users -> User search -> click all the people that you want to look up -> click the "Get reports" button. You can then download the CSV file as starting point for any future work.

You can then reupload the same CSV (having corrected the remoteuser column and deleted the "lastlogin" column) via Administration -> Users -> Add users by CSV -> choose the correct authentication method for your Moodle 2.5 -> Untick "Force password change" and tick "Update users".

Cheers

Kristina

06 January 2015, 4:23

Hello Kristina,

My users have exactly the same username because it comes from the same database (LDAP). The authentification method is correct.

But I recently notice that in the table 'mahara.usr' some of my users have a 'salt' and other dont have... How is it possible? And why?

Thank you for the method (Reports -> CSV) to change many user accounts at one time. This will be very useful!

Thank you for your help.
Patrick

Edit : In the report the user that have a 'salt' has also a 'Remote username'. Is it a clue?

06 January 2015, 8:09

Hello Patrick,

What version of Mahara are you using? Did you upgrade from an old version to one of the newer ones at the same time that you upgraded Moodle?

All accounts that come from Moodle correctly will have a remoteuser. That is necessary for Mahara to connect that account with Moodle. If your existing users, i.e. the original accounts don't have a remoteuser than that's why Mahara doesn't recognize them when they are coming from Moodle.

The easiest would be to add the remoteuser for those users and then update your accounts via Administration -> Users -> Add users by CSV. You can use the CSV file that you downloaded as starting point.

You'd have to be careful with the users that already have double accounts and deal with them manually as you'll have to find out which account they want to keep and also if they want to merge some of their data manually.

I'd recommend to add the remote username for one user via the CSV file and test things out before changing all users.

Cheers

Kristina

08 January 2015, 22:10

IT SEEMS TO WORK !!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Kristrina.

You saved me a lot of stress. We update Mahara from time to time and this must be the reason why we are in such a situation.

As you say I have to update my 250+ users through a CSV file. New users seem to inherit a remoteuser automatically.

Cheers
Patrick

09 January 2015, 11:31

Hello Patrick,

Great that it works. New users coming from Moodle get the remoteuser automatically because that is the link that Moodle needs the next time around to go back into that same account.

Cheers

Kristina