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Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can spot the ugliness that others seem to have learned to live with and can no longer see.

For a demonstration of just how true this really is, see the post about a new Moodle admins experience with moodle 2.0…he hasn’t been jaded by the nightmare of an upgrade…he just installed a fresh copy of 2.0 and is looking at it in its natural glory. As of now, no one has replied in moodle-land…but I’m sure it won’t be long before the disciples descend and attempt to explain in painstaking detail why that ugliness is so beautiful to them.  Read more... (346 words, 1 image, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

No elaboration needed here…this from one of the most loyal Moodle disciples in moodle-land and an official Moodle business partner.

I would like to be able to placate you in some way but, unfortunately, although I might not put it so strongly you make some compelling points. The documentation for Moodle 2.0 is currently lacking, plain wrong or non-existent. The new file manager is proving to be a source of confusion for many and I strongly suspect bitter experience will result in some rework in future versions.

I will tell you what I’m honestly telling most people… unless you have a compelling reason to move from 1.9 – don’t  Read more... (112 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)

Been busy working on real projects for the past few days and haven’t had time to check the forums over in moodle-land for a while. Looked in today and everything seems to be the same….lots of ticked off people feeling like they are being used as beta testers for Moodle 2.0 “stable”, lots of angry, naive admins who trusted they could upgrade to 2.0 “stable” only to see their sites get destroyed in the process. The following “frustrated, confused, and angry” person caught my eye.

Keep up the great work Moodle…seems to me you’re on the right path  Read more... (100 words, estimated 24 secs reading time)

If I recognize the name on the post quoted below, this is from a long time moodle disciple. When you get that kind of review from your biggest fans, then you know you’re in trouble. Listening yet, moodle devs?  Read more... (173 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

I usually only highlight one moodle 2.0 upgrade disaster from the forums each day that I decide to visit moodle-land, but after my previous post today, I saw another one that I just couldn’t pass up. It’s posted below and pretty much speaks for itself. I notice no disciple over in moodle-land has offered assistance yet, so I’ll tell the poster what they seem to be too “shy” to tell him in the forums.

How do you feel about starting over? Because if you don’t have a local backup of your db and moodledata directory, then you are toast!  Read more... (331 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Saw an interesting post today in moodle-land where the moodle admin/user is experiencing frustration with a Moodle 2 upgrade and the famously ‘redesigned’ file system. The entire post is quoted at the bottom of this blog post, but I just love this part:

I am not inexperienced with CMS/LMS systems and can write C, Pascal, PHP, HTML and other assorted languages, but I am starting to lose it…

Any clues would be gratefully accepted. To be honest, if this problem cannot be fixed, I will consider going back to a previous version of Moodle or switching CMLs altogether.  Read more... (639 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

I had a great time at BETT this year and never stepped foot in the UK. And after reading a tweet about someone spending 17 pounds for a sandwich, drink, and chips…sounds like I made the right choice

I’m new at this twitter thing, but I think I’ve found a new hobby combining blog posts and twitter hashtags.

How did I discover this hobby?  Read more... (222 words, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Very good advice in the post below among the sea of spin over in moodle-land…ignore it at your own moodle demise.

I’d have to argue that anyone with a Moodle 1.9 has a significant chance of losing everything by upgrading to Moodle 2 without have a detailed picture of why M2 is crashing on upgrade and a clear and concise recitation of the actual steps one must take to possibly avoid any disaster…..

Source: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=165805#p729010  Read more... (272 words, 1 image, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

Disciples over in moodle-land are continuing their old ways by blaming everyone and everything for the disaster they call Moodle 2.0 “stable”. Below is just one of todays crys in the wilderness for help after an attempted upgrade to moodle 2.0 “stable” destroyed the admins moodle site. I love the response: “Fantastico is doing funny things to Moodles these days..”

Talk about over promising and under-delivering…Moodle 2.0 is a prime example…  Read more... (182 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

I can just feel the pride and confidence oozing from the “expert” disciples over in moodle-land these days. Doesn’t the following just make you want to run out and upgrade to moodle 2.0 “stable” today?

The title of the post below on moodle.org is “Upgrading to Moodle 2.0 – Do’s & Don’ts”

I would suggest that title could be simplified to read:

“Upgrading to Moodle 2.0 – Don’t”

DO please READ Upgrading to Moodle 2.0 before attempting an UPGRADE, taking note of the advice given in that document.  Read more... (231 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

The “new and improved” file system in Moodle 2.0 has been a point of confusion since users got first wind of it over a year ago in one of the 36 “pre-release” versions…yea, 2.0 never actually made it to beta, but that’s a blog post for another day. But, for some mysterious reason, the moodle devs pushed ahead with their amatuer attempt at copying the Angel file system and today what moodle 2.0 users have is an overly complicated and confusing system that most see as a huge step backward. Below is a comment by today’s dissatisfied moodle 2.0 customer…good luck on the simplification…  Read more... (216 words, 1 image, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something new always reminds me–I haven’t. If you follow Moodle at all, I’m sure you know by now what a disaster upgrading a site to the new “stable” 2.0 can be and almost always is. Well, here’s some logic for you….

A person posted to the moodle.org forums about their host attempting to upgrade moodle 1.9 to moodle 2.0 (remember, 2.0 is moodle’s newest “stable” release). Well, the upgrade didn’t work out–big surprise there, right? The person wanted to know how to restore back to 1.9. Below is the question and the reply.  Read more... (421 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

This morning’s Moodle 2.0 upgrade disaster has left one poor site admin with “mangled” data for over 200 courses. His plea for help in the forums seem to be falling on deft ears…a trend with many of these posts about 2.0 upgrade nightmares. And its not because the moodle.org disciples don’t want to help–it’s because they don’t know how to help and in the vast majority of these upgrade disasters, there is no help other than asking the person if they have a backup. When you have a tech problem and the person helping you asks if you have a backup, that’s when you know you’re toast!  Read more... (387 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

So many Moodle 2.0 “stable” upgrade issues and so little blog space

Moodle devs…do you see a trend yet?

We’ve recently upgraded to 2.0. Today is the first day of classes and it seems no one can enrol themselves in courses (students and course creators).

Under Site administration> Plugins> Enrolments> Manage enrol plugins

We have, in order:  Read more... (223 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

• Self enrolment
• Manual enrolments
• Guest access
• Cohort sync
• Category enrolments

The HotPot module is one of the most popular “standard” modules in moodle and has been for years. If you are using that module in Moodle and you decide to “press the upgrade button” to Moodle 2.o, then get ready to be surprised. This “standard” module isn’t in moodle 2.0 and if you upgrade, you’ll more than likely destroy what you have. But then again, distruction of HotPot will most likely be only one of many issues you find on your plate with moodle 2.0 “stable”.

Gordon,  Read more... (529 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Saw the following post on moodle.org today (among many other pleas for 2.0 help). It’s short, but very telling. Tried to upgrade to moodle 2.0…had problems and decided to abort…now original site is borked…has original moodledata and moodle source code…but doesn’t seem to have original moodle db…

A very familiar story…

Sorry friend…your moodle site is like a lot of others…toast. Your option? How do you feel about starting from scratch?

Hi,  Read more... (125 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)

Yet another dissatisfied Moodle 2.0 customer. The following from an admitted”Moodle fanatic”. I’ve never seem the loyal user-base turn on Moodle like it has with this 2.0 “stable” release…even the upheaval with the disastrous 1.7 release doesn’t match the level of dissatisfaction seen with 2.0.

So, what’s Moodle to do? Admit their mistake and reclassify 2.0 as “beta” to prevent misleading other’s into thinking it’s really stable or just hunker down and keep trying to sell the illusion that this is really a stable and viable product? Unfortunately, I’ve never seen the lead Moodle dev admit a mistake before and I don’t think he has the maturity to start doing it now. Oh well…maybe Moodle 2.0.1 is the answer to all your Moodle dreams?  Read more... (305 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

One of the biggest PR nightmares for Moodle in recent years was the revelation about 3 years ago that 10s of thousands of Moodle sites all over the world had been hacked and infested with vial porn advertisements.

A little background…

I initially discovered this problem when doing routine maintenance on my own Moodle sites back in late 2007 and reported a fix on moodle.org. Unfortunately, the moodle devs, including the lead dev, ignored the problem choosing to blame users and local admins for not properly securing their moodle sites.  Read more... (687 words, estimated 2:45 mins reading time)

Yet another cry for help in the moodle.org forums today about a completely borked upgrade attempt from Moodle 1.9 to the latest and greatest Moodle 2.0.1…the user’s site is destroyed and he can’t even login. The very long reply from a forum disciple started with the following that I found particularly interesting:

How far into the install have you got?

I am presuming you have followed all the documentation on upgrading from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.0? It’s not easy and not really recommended, as there are a number of different issues still.  Read more... (337 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

One of the more common nightmares for those eager beavers who believe the propaganda that Moodle 2.0 is actually “stable” and ready for prime-time, is after pushing that upgrade button, and feeling very lucky if it actually upgrades without total destruction, they suddenly realize all their uploaded files are no longer linked in their courses. Think about it…if you are a heavy Moodle user, how many files (documents, images, etc.,) do you have uploaded and linked throughout your courses?  Read more... (583 words, estimated 2:20 mins reading time)