13 July 2009, 15:59

Is there anyway somebody could point me in the right direction as far as installing/implementing Solr? I have followed the readme file included in the solr plugin folder but I keep getting failure errors when I try to Configure Solr at the backend....... See screenshot below........

go to my mahara wiki page to see the screenshot (scroll to the bottom)

14 July 2009, 0:44

Hi David,

Your screenshot says, "Please check the ErrorLog for more information" - have you done that? There's almost certainly more information there.

Having said that, the solr plugin was written when we first started working on Mahara and I don't think it's been updated since.  It almost certainly has bugs.  It would be great to get someone to step up and give it a bit of love!

 

14 July 2009, 8:24

These are the error messages that were in the error log:

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [DBG] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:355) Starting rebuild_views(), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) PluginSearchSolr::send_update (Got non-zero return status)<result status="1">com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxUnexpectedCharException: Unexpected character '0' (code 48) in prolog; expected '&lt;', referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572)  at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1], referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat com.ctc.wstx.sr.StreamScanner.throwUnexpectedChar(StreamScanner.java:648), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat com.ctc.wstx.sr.BasicStreamReader.nextFromProlog(BasicStreamReader.java:2047), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat com.ctc.wstx.sr.BasicStreamReader.next(BasicStreamReader.java:1069), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.solr.handler.XmlUpdateRequestHandler.processUpdate(XmlUpdateRequestHandler.java:148), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.solr.handler.XmlUpdateRequestHandler.doLegacyUpdate(XmlUpdateRequestHandler.java:393), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.solr.servlet.SolrUpdateServlet.doPost(SolrUpdateServlet.java:78), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:637), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.solr.servlet.SolrDispatchFilter.doFilter(SolrDispatchFilter.java:295), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:293), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:849), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:454), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) \tat java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619), referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] [WAR] 99 (search/solr/lib.php:572) </result>, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] Call stack (most recent first):, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242]   * log_message("PluginSearchSolr::send_update (Got non-zero return...", 8, true, true) at /var/www/linkadem/data/www/linkademy.com/lib/errors.php:90, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242]   * log_warn("PluginSearchSolr::send_update (Got non-zero return...") at /var/www/linkadem/data/www/linkademy.com/search/solr/lib.php:572, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242]   * PluginSearchSolr::send_update("<delete><query>type:view</query></delete>") at /var/www/linkadem/data/www/linkademy.com/search/solr/lib.php:538, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242]   * PluginSearchSolr::delete_bytype("view") at /var/www/linkadem/data/www/linkademy.com/search/solr/lib.php:357, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242]   * PluginSearchSolr::rebuild_views() at /var/www/linkadem/data/www/linkademy.com/search/solr/reindex.json.php:48, referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr

[Mon Jul 13 16:04:40 2009] [error] [client 69.47.130.242] , referer: http://www.linkademy.com/admin/extensions/pluginconfig.php?plugintype=search&pluginname=solr 

14 July 2009, 12:37

If somebody has had similar messages and/or they can tell me how to get rid of them that would be ultra awesome.  I'm new to this whole SOLR thing.

14 July 2009, 17:02

So I can confirm that the searching part of the plugin is working.  I went to the admin area of solr and viewed the statistics page and every time I searched for something via my site, it showed that there was an increase in the lookups field.  So it seems that the plugin isn't handeling the re-indexing part correctly or this part of the plugin isn't compatible with the newer versions of Mahara.  Can somebody help me out with what I should modify or what to modify it to?  Any help with this plugin would be great!!  Does anybody know who originally developed this plugin?  If so, I'm sure that they would have some great insight.

14 July 2009, 23:53

I'm the original developer of the plugin but as Penny said, it was developed a very long time ago. 

I'll try and have a bit of a look around this evening to make it go, but I do know that Solr has moved forward quite a bit since I wrote the plugin, so it's possibly just incompatibility with newer versions of Solr that are causing your problems.

 Could you tell me what version of Solr you're using? 

15 July 2009, 8:22

The version I'm using is 1.3 which is the newsest download from the solr site.  If you need any other information let me know.

15 July 2009, 15:30

Well having maintained a few other applications that use Solr, I imagine that Solr 1.3 is unlikely to work with the existing plugin. That said, hopefully it wouldn't take too much to bring it up to scratch again.

 I will have a chat with Nigel today sometime and get his take on what the best approach might be to getting it fixed up :-) 

16 July 2009, 2:37

The solr plugin has been shipped with Mahara since the original release builds a few years ago. It's not been updated since early 2007, so I'm not that surprised it's broken.

Given that things have changed so much, it may be that the plugin is even more broken than suspected - e.g., even if it _was_ just solr 1.3 that was causing breakage, there's no guarantee that it will be indexing things correctly, or according to our access rules.

For that reason, I've actually been musing tossing it out of Mahara all together for now, until we can come back at some point in the future and do it properly.

To be honest, nobody has an installation big enough to require solr - although solr's more advanced features would be a benefit on any site. We have sites with thousands of users which run fine with the SQL search. So it might be easier for you to just not use it for now?