Save content state not working with specific course presentation files

Submitted by Nuria on Wed, 10/02/2019 - 13:45
Forums: 
Content creation

Hello,

I created a course for learning Spanish in Moodle. The course is a blended learning credited course for university students and I have mainly used the 'Course presentation' activity to assess students' progress.

Neither less to say the save content state is a necessary feature since it allows students to come back to the work the have done in the last place where they stopped working. 

Now, I am experiencing very strange behavior with the save content state feature, it seems to be working on some of the course presentations only. For example, there is a specific h5p course presentation file that does not save the content state either in Moodle or Wordpress. I have tried to twit all the settings but still does not work. 

With this message, I am uploading two files, one that does not save the user's content state and another which records the user's answers after refreshing the page.

I wanted to ask you for a favor. Could you upload the files to your Moodle or Wordpress site and see if they behave the same for you. I have a feeling that there is something from 'within' the file that is stopping it from saving the students' work.

Would it be possible for you to inspect the file where this feature does not work and see if there is anything wrong with it?  (the title of the files say which works and which one doesn't)

Thanks a lot 

Nuria

H5P file: 
Binary Data Save content sate NO WORKING.h5p
Attachments: 
Binary Data save-content-state-works-211.h5p
Summary: 
Save content state not working in some course presentation files
Content types: 
Course Presentation
otacke's picture

otacke

Wed, 10/02/2019 - 18:59

Hi Nuria!

There was fix to Course Presentation regarding this issue one month ago (https://github.com/h5p/h5p-course-presentation/issues/98). Please check if your content already uses version 1.21.2 of Course Presentation.

Best,

Oliver 

Nuria

Wed, 10/02/2019 - 19:47

Hi,

Yes, I have updated the course presentation library to its latest version.  Actually, I was the one who reported this bug.

There is no problem with the loading of the course presentation. The problem is with the 'save content state' feature in itself. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I am trying to figure out the pattern, but I cannot do it. I have seen other users have complained about it but nobody has really followed up on this issue. 

Could you please check if you can reproduce the issue with the file I have sent where the content state feature is not working? 

Thanks

otacke's picture

otacke

Wed, 10/02/2019 - 22:21

Hi Nuria!

The problem that was fixed was in fact related to the save-content-state feature - and according to the issue, it was reported by someone in Finland.

Rather than providing the content file you should look out for errors in the development console. The saved states are not inside the files. They are stored inside your database.

Best,

Oliver

Nuria

Thu, 10/03/2019 - 10:05

Hi Oliver,

Yes, I did report the bug here https://h5p.org/comment/29527#comment-29527 but surely more than one person did.

Thank you for your suggestion, I am not a technical person,  so I am not sure how to look for errors in the development console. I have my own word press site so I have admin access to Wordpress and can access settings, etc. I also use h5p in a Moodle platform run by the university where I work but I don't have admin access to the Moodle.

The thing that makes me not understand is why some specific files do not work either in Wordpress or in Moodle and others do. That's why I thought it is to do with the files and that's why I asked if you could see if it is happening also for you.

The point is, the save content state feature does not work all the time. Is this possibly a bug? Should I report it as a bug?

I have attached a photo of a comment that somebody posted on how to  reset the user's content state in the data field of the h5p_contents_user_data table (I am not sure what this is...) but I just thought maybe this is what is happening, I mean, I do not want this to happen, but maybe the problem is to do with this? 

Sorry if I am just throwing random ideas on what could be the culprit but I am just a teacher trying to find a solution for my students to not cheat...

Thanks again for your patience.

Nuria

Attachments: 
Image icon Screen Shot 2019-10-03 at 10.58.50.png
BV52's picture

BV52

Thu, 10/03/2019 - 19:17

Hi Nuria and Oliver,

I think the issue that was reported in Github is separate from what Nuria is experiencing. It so happens that it occured at the same time that is why we think it has been caused by the same thing.

Having said this I was finally able to reproduce the issue on my end using Nuria's contents. Furthermore checking the console I found this error (screenshot attached). Since I am unable to reproduce this issue using a content I created I am assuming 2 possible causes, either there is an issue somewhere in Nuria's setup that causes the issue or there are specific combinations of contents embedded in Course Presentation which breaks the feature. I will try to disect both contents and also check with the core team for any suggestion.

-BV52

Attachments: 
Image icon Console error.png

Nuria

Thu, 10/03/2019 - 20:34

Hi BV52,

Thank you so much for taking the time to investigate and share your thoughts about what could be the culprit.

I think I have understood what is causing the problem. When you mention that it could be a specific combination of contents embedded which breaks the feature, the first thing that came to mind was Dialogue cards (I had some issues before where they were also breaking the content when combined with other activities). Also, I realized that all of the course presentations where I found this issue had dialogue cards embedded in them. So, I have removed the dialogue cards and now the save contents state feature seems to be working fine. 

I did a few tests both in my Wordpress site and in Moodle and the feature seems to be working, but you may want to double-check.

I guess I will have to do without the cards until the issue can be solved.

Thanks so much BV52!

Nuria

 

BV52's picture

BV52

Fri, 10/04/2019 - 23:48

Hi Nuria,

Thank you for the clue. I think we are on to something here.

From the tests that I made using your content 'save content state' works if I turn at least the first card of the dialog card activity. I had to make sure that this behavior would be cosistent so I created my own content mimicking your sample content but simpler in sense that it only had one each for fill in the blanks, audio, drop text etc. Using my content 'save content state' works as expected. So this could be very specific to how many slides, how many contents are embedded in each slide. I just need to find the breaking point or a certain combination of the contents before I file this as a bug but certainly there is some issue with 'save content state' not working harmonously with the dialog cards. I'll investigate more about this over the weekend and file the bug report once I find some consistency. If not I may ask for further information from you on Monday.

-BV52

Nuria

Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:40

Hi BV52,

Today my students have encountered another problem with the save content state where they logged out of their accounts and when they were back they had lost all the work. (course presentation came back empty). This time there are not dialogue cards in the course presentation but it seems to be happening with the add and drop activities.  (I have uploaded the file where this issue happened) If you attempt to do only the first two slides of the presentation (which are add and drop activities) and refresh the page, the content is not saved. However, I have noticed that if I do first the add and drop activity and then go to the summary slide after I refresh the page the content is saved.

Still, I find the behavior of save content state a bit random. It's difficult to spot what is causing the issue really.

Nuria

H5P file: 
Binary Data ONLINE LESSON 3 asking-for-classroom-objects-masculine-and-feminine-nouns-344.h5p
BV52's picture

BV52

Thu, 10/10/2019 - 19:20

Hi Nuria,

Thank you for the additional information. It is a bit odd though that no one else has reported this issue eventhough I was able to confirm that the issue is there if I use your content. Let me continue digging into this issue and I apologize for the delay.

-BV52

cbuchanan

Thu, 11/14/2019 - 20:46

I have been reporting this exact same issue without resolution https://h5p.org/comment/30626#comment-30626