Adapt Learning Community: LMS issues with ADAPT?

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Hi,

Just revisiting this issue with SABA LMS. I implemented the launch.html workaround, but am getting a couple of issues with different versions of SABA. Do you have any previous experience of the following:

SABA version 5.5 - ADAPT course gets stuck at the loading page (spinning loading gif) when you try to launch the scorm (with several different browsers).

Another is SABA 5.4 - the course loads, but when attempting to exit, a message box appears saying 'an error has occurred: Course could not finish'.

Many thanks,

Bill

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Hi Bill

I haven't seen those errors with SABA before, no. In fact we've just done some testing with a client using SABA Enterprise 5.5.1.3 and had no issues at all.

The stuck-at-loading issue - the several different browsers you mention, assuming these include some non-IE browsers then the first thing I'd think to look for is something failing to load within the course. Does the server have json set as a mime-type? Are all references to assets case-sensitive? Are there any errors in the console that would suggest something being wrong?

The error message you're getting on exit - the exit routine has two potential points of failure: first it will call LMSCommit() to ensure all data is saved, then it will call LMSFinish to properly terminate the session. Either of these could fail and return an error. Perhaps if you try opening the console (F12) before exiting you might get more detail about what's failing?

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Hi Matt,

Thanks very much for the pointers. Great to know you've had ADAPT working in 5.5!

Regards,

Bill

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Hi Matt,

Reference your point - Does the server have json set as a mime-type?

The server doesn't have this, and it would apparently by a lengthy process to get approved and set.

Should I assume that JSON absolutely must be set as a mime type for ADAPT to work?

Thanks again,

Bill

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No, it is possible to work around this - we've run into a similar issue before where the host of the server simply point-blank refused to add the mime-type!

Basically you can just change the extension of all the .json files to .txt - it'll still work providing you also update the code that loads those files, which is all in core/js/app.js. Just do a find and replace, there should be six instances that need changing.

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This is huge for me! Thank you so much, Matt, for posting this fix. My LMS's administrator flatly refused to change the MIME settings, so I had basically given up months ago on deploying my courses through our LMS. I assumed this was a fundamental problem, but I obviously should have asked about it here.

The solution you posted doesn't perfectly work for me because I'm trying to build all of our courses in the Authoring Tool, so that non-technical users in our office can edit and create content. But I was able to implement a similar solution by changing references to JSON in adapt.min.js of the build directory for the course instead of in the core directory as you suggested. This appears to solve the problem - our LMS now seems to serve the course correctly. But I was wondering: does anyone foresee any problems with this workaround? Is there an important reason to update the js in the core instead of directly in the build directory?

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Hi Cory

Really pleased that has solved a major problem for you!

I don't think there will be any problem with changing the code directly in the build - other than you having to do this every time you need to publish the course with the intention of uploading it to the LMS.

If this turns out to be a common issue it may well that the authoring tool team could do something about it in the authoring tool itself - I'm thinking something along the lines of having a setting that would allow you to get the authoring tool to export the JSON with a .txt file extension (with the core code updated accordingly).

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Thanks, Matt, that's great!

I might be doing something wrong, but when I run the Grunt build command, it still does the "check-json" task and says:

"warning: Unable to read "src/course/en/contentObjects.json" file <Error code: ENOENT>

I checked and the changes have all been made correctly as you suggested to the file extensions and app.js file.

Do I need to override the check json task somehow?

Thanks for your help!

Bill

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Ah of course - I forgot about that part of the process.

In that case, it might actually be easiest to have the Grunt process rename the files for you as it transfers them from src to build - that should just require a couple of changes.

Find the courseJson copy task in Gruntfile.js (it should be very near the top of that file). Add the following after the 'cwd' line (which you'll need to add a comma to the end of):

rename: function(dest, src) { return dest + src.replace(/\.json$/, ".txt"); }

You'll also need to make a minor amend to the create-json-config task, just to change the file extension there too. Search for build/course/config.json and replace with build/course/config.json (there should be just one instance)

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Excellent, thanks!

I've made the changes and will update for the community how testing goes.

Kind regards,

Bill

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Sorry, that last sentence should read:

Search for build/course/config.json and replace with build/course/config.txt (there should be just one instance)

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No worries - I got the gist from your explanation, so didn't even spot the typo! Thanks.

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I'm afraid we still have the issue with the course getting stuck at the loading screen.

I'm sure the json mime type workaround is fine, but there must be something else in the LMS causing a problem.

Thanks,

Bill

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I would get the browser's developer tools involved at this point then. I think you said the problem occurred across multiple browsers? If so that's good as the developer tools in IE8/9/10 aren't very good in comparison to the ones in Firefox (though you can use Firebug Lite within IE instead).

First just see if Adapt is putting any obvious errors into the console. If not then the network panel is probably your best next step as this can show you whether anything is failing to load.

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Hi Matt,

I took your advice to check the network panel, and there's a 404 error on the config.json.

I guess that means my renaming from .Json to .txt didn't work properly. Checking back, the build folder actually contains both json and txt files - is that correct or should it ovewrite? I tried deleting the json files, but still got the 404 error.

Appreciate your help!

Bill

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It wouldn't overwrite, no. You need to just manually delete the original .json files from the build folder. Should be a one-time only thing.

The most likely explanation for it not working is that you missed a bit of code in core/js/app.js - there should be six lines that you'll need to change from .json to .txt - one for each of the 6 .json files that Adapt uses.

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It works - the course is loading fine now!

Thanks again Matt for all your help with this. Much appreciated.

Bill

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Hi Matt,

I tried to change all .json course files to .txt and its references, but I believe all those files that had to be changed were updated or new ones were added to the framework, then I couldn't get it done. Would you please show me how to apply it in a recent framework version? I'm struggling with it :(

I really appreciate any help you can provide.

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all those files that had to be changed were updated or new ones were added to the framework, then I couldn't get it done. Would you please show me how to apply it in a recent framework version

Are you referring to the grunt files that handle the dev/build tasks? If so, sorry but I actually don't know how to do it in the latest version - as we don't use that here.

You can either have a run through the files to figure it out for yourself or you can switch to the build tool we use - RUB - the develop version of which can be configured to look for .txt files instead of .json

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Hi Matt,

My client is asking what the SCORM calls are when the course window is closed.

Are the 2 above (LMSCommit() and LMSFinish) the only calls, or are there others?

I only ask because they are trying to troubleshoot a shell their LMS uses. My course works fine when they load it as the full SCORM package.

Many thanks,

Bill

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Hi Bill

It will do the following:

set cmi.core.session_time to whatever the session time was
set cmi.core.exit to "" (empty string)
call LMSCommit()
call LMSFinish() - if the call to LMSCommit() was successful

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Perfect, thanks very much!

Bill

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Ok, now that we've gotten the course running in SumTotal, we are now getting the exit error Bill mentions (but seemingly just in IE). We have a suspicion that it may have something to do with the document mode being incompatible. I had a similar issue with SumTotal and IE running a Captivate course that was published in HTML5, and an Adobe help file mentioned that SumTotal does not support the IE9 document standards mode. The only solution I was able to find was to republish the Captivate course as Flash. This is obviously not an option here.

Can you think of anything else we might be able to do here? The vast majority of our users are on IE and it's imperative that it run for them.

Bill, did you do anything to solve this or did you just end up running the newer version of Saba?

Thanks,

Arend

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Here's an update of where we stand today on this issue.

I did get our administrators to add json as a mime-type. That got the course running, but we still had the exit error. We thought it might have something to do with the quiz questions, as it only seemed to trigger when someone answered a question and then closed the course. However, I did a test where I removed all quiz questions and the error occurred on that build as well.

It seems like this may indeed have something to do with the document mode settings. The course works fine in Chrome and Firefox, but IE is where we see the error. We do have a major LMS update coming in December. I've asked whether this will make a change to the document mode and am waiting to hear back.

At the moment, we have a temporary version running without SCORM on our LMS. This is less than ideal, but we needed to get it online today. So removing the SCORM makes it work on our LMS without issue. Maybe that's a clue.

We plan to try a couple other things. First, we will try to change from SCORM 1.2 to SCORM 2004 to see if that makes any difference (I'm skeptical). I also spoke to a vendor who has built some HTML5 content for us, and he may be able to advise on some code.

If anyone has suggestions based on what I've written, I'm all ears.

Thanks,

Arend

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Hi Arend,

Yes, we did have to make one more change to fix the exit error. After publishing and before zipping up the build folder:

Go to build/adapt/js/adapt.min.js and find:

case"undefined":return

Then replace 'null' with 'true'

This was only because we were using a shell which handled the quitting of the course, so I don't know what effect it would have on your LMS - sorry.

Bill

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Hi BIll,

Thanks for responding. We tried this change and, unfortunately, we're still receiving the error on exit.

Our next steps are:

1) To try to implement SCORM 2004 instead, though we've had a little trouble with this so far.

2) To test in the demo environment of our upcoming LMS upgrade to see if SumTotal has made a change that will fix the issue.

Any further suggestions are welcome!

Arend

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Just another update on this.

SumTotal is actually moving to an SAAS upgrade, which we will be moving to in December. The timing is fortunate, because I managed to test our Adapt course on a beta version and it worked perfectly, without the exit error.

This means that (barring any changes), we will be fine to launch SCORM-enabled Adapt courses on our LMS come December.

Thanks!

Arend

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