Frequently Asked Questions
The following are a few questions that get asked often. Many other questions can be answered by reading the documentation. See the ATutor Handbook and use its search tool to find keywords associated with your question. Answers can also be found by searching the atutor.ca Web site using the Google Search in the menu to the left. The search returns results from all public pages under atutor.ca, as well as answers found in forum posts.
Q:
- Why can I not get mail to send from ATutor?
- I've upload ATutor file-by-file using my FTP client, but now that its installed, I get lots of different error messages or blank pages?
- How come I am unable to, or can no longer upload files to my course.
- The language I need is not available for the current version of ATutor. Do I have to use an older version of ATutor?
- Why am I being asked to pay for support when ATutor is free open source software?
- Why won't ATutor staff login to my ATutor system to help resolve a bug I think I found?
A:
- Why can I not get mail to send from ATutor?
ATutor expects a sendmail executable to be available that submits a message sent from ATutor into the system's mail cue. From there it can be sent via a number of mail transfer agents including Sendmail itself, or another mail agent such as PostFix or QMail. ATutor sends, but does not receive email.
On Linux (or Mac) systems the best option is to use the locally installed Sendmail application. If configured to handle mail and functioning correctly before ATutor is installed, mail should work in ATutor without any additional configuration. For more about configuring Sendmail visit one of the many configuration howto sites such as the How To Wiki.
If the path to your Sendmail installation is not listed in the default PATH for you system after running "which sendmail" at the command prompt, the path to Sendmail needs to be defined as the value for "sendmail_path" in the system's php.ini file.
If you are running ATutor on a Windows system, you will likely need to define a location of a remote SMTP server in the system's php.ini file. The SMTP server that is defined must accept incoming mail transfers. To define an external SMPT server set the following values in php.ini, replacing the value of SMTP with an appropriate location.
SMTP = someplace.aserver.com
smtp_port = 25 - I've upload ATutor file-by-file using my FTP client, but now that it's installed, I get different error messages or blank pages. What's the problem?
While it is possible in some cases to unzip the ATutor.tar.gz file on your computer, then upload all the extracted files one-by-one, the chance of something going wrong is very high. You should always upload the tar.gz file to your server, then unpack the file there.
If unpacking on the server is not an option, you can use something like SyncBack to ensure the files uploaded have not degraded during the transfer.
For help with SyncBack, contact its developer.
- How come I am unable to, or can no longer upload files to my course?
By default the maximum size of a file that can be uploaded into ATutor is 1 MB, and the maximum space for a course is 10MB. This can be changed by the ATutor administrator in the Course's Properties, found under the Courses tab, then selecting a course and pressing the Edit button.
The system administrator can grant as much space to a course as he or she chooses, but can only allow upload file sizes up to the size defined as the maximum by PHP. That value can be changed by modifying the system's php.ini file, setting the values of upload_max_filesize and post_max_filesize to a larger value, then restarting the Web server to activate the new settings.
It is also necessary for the ATutor content directory, where files are uploaded to, to be writeable by the Web server's user. This user is often called “nobody” or “apache.” The content directory is usually set to be writeable during the installation or upgrade process. Check for write permission on the content directory, and that any files or directories inside the content directory are owned by the web server user.
- The language I need is not available for the current version of ATutor. Do I have to use an older version of ATutor?
No, you can use the current version with an older language pack, then update the language. In many cases if a language pack is not available for the current version, a partially completed one is available from an older version of ATutor. You can translate any items that may be missing from the new version. In most cases bringing a language pack up-to-date can be completed in a relatively short period of time. For details on translating ATutor, and importing older language packs, see the translator documentation.
Also, if you update a language or translate a new language for ATutor, be sure to export the language pack from your ATutor installation, and attach it to a forum post in the atutor.ca Translation forum so it gets archived and made available for future versions of ATutor.
- Why am I being asked to pay for support when ATutor is free open source software?
ATutor maybe free to use, but it is not free to develop or support. Much of ATutor is supported through grants and various contract projects, which pay our engineers and computer scientists to program the software. These are highly skilled, well paid individuals. None of the grants or contracts provide funds to offer ongoing support. Free support you find in the public forums is often provided by individuals on their own time. You should not expect free support, but rather treat the support you get in the forums as a privilege.
If you do need more support than you can find in the forums, various ATutor support services are available to provide one-on-one help.
- Why won't ATutor staff login to my ATutor system to help resolve a bug I think I found?
While bug reports are appreciated, and they are often dealt with quickly by issuing a patch that corrects a problem, in the vast majority of cases what may seem to be a bug to the average user, is actually a server configuration problem, or some other issue with the server ATutor is hosted on.
If an ATutor developer is unable to reproduce a bug on a local ATutor installation, it will not be treated as a bug until enough evidence is provided by the person reporting, that the problem is proven to originate in ATutor, and is not the results of misconfiguration or problems with the server.
In many cases, approaching your Internet service provider is the right place to find help. They will have appropriate access privileges to your account, and knowledge of the server's configuration, so often they can resolve problems quickly. And after all, you are paying them for your hosting service, so they should be available to provide support. If you have purchased ATutor services, ATutor staff are happy to login to your ATutor system to help investigate problems, but this level of support can not be provided for free.
If you do think you have found a bug in ATutor, the proper way to report it is through the atutor.ca Bug Reports forum, or if you are a developer, through the atutor.ca bug and feature tracker. Depending on the severity of a bug, it may be dealt with immediately and a patch issued, or it may be put off until a specified bug fix period which normally occurs a few weeks before a new release.
