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What if users can't login to Moodle?

Moodle users need to authenticate using UCLA’s Shibboleth service. If there is a problem in the authentication chain, users will not be able to login.

Since there is a number of steps in the chain of applications behind the CCLE, the problem could be caused by any one of a number of steps.

When Moodle is up and working but not able to authenticate using Shibboleth properly, users will have a 15-20 second delay and see the following message in a pink error box:

“You seem to be Shibboleth authenticated but Moodle didn’t receive any user attributes. Please check that your Identity Provider releases the necessary attributes (‘HTTP_SHIB_EDUPERSONPPN’, ‘HTTP_SHIB_GIVENNAME’, ‘HTTP_SHIB_CN’ and ‘HTTP_SHIB_UCLAOFFICIALEMAIL’) to the Service Provider Moodle is running on or inform the webmaster of this server.”

There are two Moodle environments:

Below is a test process. The goal is to capture information at each step and send it to the appropriate people.

Test Process
1. Try logging into PROD yourself
— This will tell you if the problem is with the individual user’s account or is more wide-spread
2. Try logging into DEV
— This will tell you if the problem is specific to PROD
3. Try loggin into Moodle with a local account, such as an Admin account or the janebruin test account
— This will tell you if Moodle is partially working correctly
4. If you are not on campus, connect with the Cisco VPN. Try the Shibboleth test applications found near the bottom of this page: http://kb.ucla.edu/articles/shibboleth
(The WhoAmI? and myEvents applications only work if you are on campus or accessing the application over the VPN.)
— This will tell you if Shibboleth service is working correctly.

myEvents: https://myevents.ucla.edu
WhoAmI?: https://whoa.mi.ais.ucla.edu

Who do I send the information to?
Immediately send all the information to both:

1. CCLE System Operations: Ed Sakabu (edsakabu@ucla.edu)
2. AIS Help Desk (FrontOffice@ais.ucla.edu ; evening/weekend phone number: x66951)

Caution: Even after this testing, the results may not be clear. In a recent episode, testers were not able to log into PROD or DEV, yet were able to confirm Shibboleth was working with WhoAmI? (The issue turned out to be a secondary Shibboleth server not acting properly.)

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