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Articulate SCORM Courses not functioning

We ported our courses made in Articulate with SCORM from our old moodle system to Totara. Now we get this error when we try to run them:

An error has occured:

Error - unable to acquire LMS API, content may not play properly and results may not be recorded. Please contact technical support.

Press 'OK' to view debug information to send to technical support.

The Debug Information:

0:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:17 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - Trying to create XMLHttpRequest in JavaScript1.5
1:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:17 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - Entered browser conditional
2:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:17 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - Creating object
3:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:17 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - intReCheckLoadedInterval=250
4:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:17 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - intReCheckAttemptsBeforeTimeout=240
5:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:17 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - IFrameLoaded
6:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - In GetAICCURL
7:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - GetQueryStringValue Element 'AICC_URL' Not Found, Returning: empty string
8:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - Querystring value =
9:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - GetAICCURL returning:
10:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - In DetectPreferredCommMethod, checking XMLHTTP
11:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - Checking IFrame
12:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - blnCanU**MLHTTP=true
13:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - AICCComm - blnCanUseIFrame=true
14:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - ----------------------------------------
15:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - ----------------------------------------
16:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In Start - Version: 3.3 Last Modified=09/15/2011 17:26:10
17:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Browser Info (Netscape 5.0 (Macintosh))
18:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - URL: http://totara.walterbushnell.com/file.php/33/moddata/scorm/1/index_lms.html
19:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - ----------------------------------------
20:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - ----------------------------------------
21:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In ClearErrorInfo
22:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - GetQueryStringValue Element 'StandAlone' Not Found, Returning: empty string
23:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - GetQueryStringValue Element 'ShowDebug' Not Found, Returning: empty string
24:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - strStandAlone= strShowInteractiveDebug=
25:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Standard From Configuration File - SCORM2004
26:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Using Standard From Configuration File - SCORM2004
27:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In LMSStandardAPI strStandard=SCORM2004
28:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Calling Standard Initialize
29:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In SCORM2004_Initialize
30:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In SCORM2004_ClearErrorInfo
31:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Grabbing API
32:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In SCORM2004_GrabAPI
33:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Searching with Rustici Software algorithm
34:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Grab API, returning, found API = false
35:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - Unable to acquire SCORM API:
36:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - SCORM2004_objAPI=undefined
37:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In InitializeExecuted, blnSuccess=false, strErrorMessage=Error - unable to acquire LMS API, content may not play properly and results may not be recorded. Please contact technical support.
38:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - ERROR - LMS Initialize Failed
39:Thu Oct 06 2011 22:04:18 GMT+0530 (IST) - In DisplayError, strMessage=Error - unable to acquire LMS API, content may not play properly and results may not be recorded. Please contact technical support.

Please help!

Thanks

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Hi Aditya

Are you able to save your Articulate file as SCORM 1.2 format and see if this helps - Totara does not fully support SCORM 2004.

Craig

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Thanks Craig. We are re-saving as 1.2 SCORM and it seems to work.

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I am just researching something on this subject for another customer and thought I would share the following.

'SCORM 2004 is not completely supported in Moodle at this stage. Parts of the API have been implemented, but others such as Navigation and Sequencing are not yet supported. If you require a fully certified SCORM 2004 Player in Moodle, Rustici Software have a Moodle plugin which connects to their commercial SCORM Cloud service turning Moodle into a fully compliant SCORM 2004 LMS.'

I can't vouch for how reliable this is, but it is another option to consider.

Andy

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The Rustici SCORM cloud works well - little bit more info here:
http://danmarsden.com/blog/2009/11/01/moodle-and-scorm-2004-certified-already/

We have several clients who use it and find it really good- Rustici also have a "hosted" cloud option where you can set up the "SCORM Cloud" on your own internal servers (not sure how pricey that is though) - we're just in the process of setting this up for one of our Totara clients.

Rustici have just contracted Catalyst to security/code review their Moodle 2.0 scormcloud plugin - there are a couple of issues with the existing code that I've just recently reported against their new 2.0 version that seem to exist in the 1.9 version as well but the dev that's been working on this has just gone on leave - when he comes back I expect they will sort the issues in the next month or so.

Rustici have been very active in the SCORM Moodle forums and seem to be a really easy company to work with(at least in my dealings with them)

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G'day Dan! Very interesting. Just noticed the SCORM Cloud plugin over at the new Moodle plugins database.

http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_scormcloud

Other than fast-tracking SCORM 2004 compliance for Moodle, are there any other reasons for clients to host their SCOs in Rustici's cloud? Also, any ETC when Moodle core might be 2004 compliant?

Cheers, Chad

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The main reason is definately SCORM 2004 - but the Rustici Plugin also has some nice built in reporting and is used a lot more widely than SCORM in Moodle so it may handle a wider range of buggy SCORM packages than Moodle currently does.

No ETA on 2004 compliance for Moodle - there's been some limited improvements in 2.2 and one of our GSOC students wrote a test harness to allow us to automatically run the SCORM 2004 tests on Moodle which is really handy - we've also documented(partially) the work required to finish compliance - based on each SCORM 2004 test that is currently failing. If you're interested in having a look/helping with the testing/fixes - check out:
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-7068

Any fixes against any of the 193 open tasks on that bug would be appreciated. :-) - there's a lot to do!

Mayank - the GSOC student that wrote the test harness has been spending a little more time (even though his GSOC project has finished) suggesting fixes for a few more of the open tasks. at the moemnt he's working on MDL-28805 - if you take a look at this you'll see that this test is failing in multiple areas and will require multiple patches to fix each issue.

What I can say about SCORM 2004 compliance is that I am only pushing SCORM 2004 fixes into the master branch(at the moment this is Moodle 2.2) - I just don't have time to support/patch these in the stable branches as most of my work on SCORM is done as outside-work/volunteer hours... of course if someone comes up with funding to pay for the work they are welcome to pay for my time to backport to 1.9

More info on Mayank's project is here:
http://danmarsden.com/blog/2011/08/15/moodle-2-2-scorm-2004-and-gsoc/

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Dan - you raise a good point about the rustici plugin possibly handler a wider range of buggy packages. It reads like a labour of love, but rest assured we appreciate the work you're doing with SCOR module. Thanks for the heads up re: SCORM 2004, Dan. GSOC project for 2.2 looks good, too!

Cheers,
Chad

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heh... not sure I could say that I "loved" any part of SCORM - couldn't even say it was a love-hate relationship... more a dislike-hate relationship big grin

although I do enjoy the interaction with the community and the satisfaction of being able to help!

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Totara 1.1.2 added a new feature that I think fixes it - (I haven't actually used/tested it myself yet)

T-9010      Allow SCORM activity to be directly launched
 SCORM activities can now be launched directly from the course view page, using "direct view"

Otherwise the post you refer to is the only patch available that partially addresses it in 1.9 - but make sure you read this post as well:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=188021&parent=827652

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Hi Aditya,

we had a client experiencing a similar issue using SCORM 1.2 and moodle 2.x. This only affected some end users and seemed random.

We changed the '$delayseconds' parameter in .../mod/scorm/loadSCO.php from '2' to '5'. This gives the browser a little more time to define API before launching the SCO.

This sorted the issue for us. I'd be interested to know what other people think.

Chad

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