On Wed, 27 Aug 2008, Anthony Critchley wrote:

> Thanks for your quick reply, I did use the backup/restore function
> simply because on the old server I was hosting an old version of Moodle,
> which there were no longer any files available to update.

I'm not quite sure I follow you, the lack of updates for the version of 
Moodle your using dosn't stop you from copying it onto a new computer and 
upgrading to a new version later on.

> However, unfortunately I am no longer able to access this old server as
> the network team have now removed it.

For future reference, you should never allow an old server system to be 
disposed of until the replacement has been fully tested and validated as 
working. It might be worth asking your network team if they still have the 
computer in a store somewhere so that they can make sure it isn't disposed 
until your new system is working properly.

This is really a question of backup integrity, software has bugs and that 
includes backup systems. Until you've tested the new system with the 
restored backup there is no way to know that the backup is 'good' and that 
it hasn't missed something, so keeping the old equipment (or at least 
the Hard disk) in a cupboard somewhere for a few weeks is a good insurance 
policy. If you can't keep the physical hardware, then a disk image or a 
zip of the entire hard disk contents is a good alternative.

> So do you think there is no way of a fix?

I'm sure a way can be found, it's just easier to go back to a working 
system and do the transfer in stages so you can work out the point at 
which things go wrong. As things stand you were doing a major backup 
restore and moodle upgrade as part of the same process, this increases the 
risk of something going wrong, especially if you've skipped a couple of 
Moodle versions.

Another thought, if you can't go back to the original server it might be 
worth trying to restore the backup you do have onto a copy of the same 
version of Moodle which was used on the old server, if that works reliably 
then we can approach the upgrade seperately. If not, then we have a 
problem with the backup.

However, before we try anything else with the backups, my guess is that 
something has upset the various roles in your Moodle, so a quick fix 
that might work for you is to reset all of the default roles on the 
system back to their default. If you look at any given role in Site 
Admin under Users>Permissions>Define Roles you should find a 'reset to 
defaults' button. I've never had to do this myself, but it might sort the 
problem if it is a permissions issue.

Regarding the blank pages, in addition to Maris suggestion, it's also 
worth checking the system environment, Moodle is gradually requiring more 
and more extra PHP components which might not be present on your server, 
this could cause some pages to fail and other functions to not work 
properly. In Site Admin, go to Server>Environment and see if anything is 
missing.

Tim W

-- 
Tim Williams BSc MSc MBCS - Euromotor Autotrain
Web : http://www.autotrain.org
Tel : +44 (0)121 414 2214 (ext 42214 on internal phone)