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Pearson onscreen platform installation woes

IT_Man_Dan

By IT_Man_Dan
in Educational Software

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dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted

Well I managed to get it installed (after some entirely random glitches where some test player machines would connect to the invigilator station and others wouldn't).

 

I've asked for an isolated demo test (just ICT Teachers and Technicians) so that I can see if it will work.

dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted

I've run an isolated demo test with 5 stations picked at random. It went off fine without any hitches so far.

 

We will also test it using another demo test at some point before December, but so far I am moderately reassured, at the moment at least.

Theblacksheep

Theblacksheep

Posted
Posted

Ours has stopped working with the latest "next generation" updates. Login error.

 

Upsteam proxy only with pearson whitelisted (so no proxy settings). Still got login errors. Support useless. 99% sure tests not happening now.

  • 2 weeks later...
NickDay85

NickDay85

Posted
Posted
Well I managed to get it installed (after some entirely random glitches where some test player machines would connect to the invigilator station and others wouldn't).

 

I have this EXACT issue. What did you do to fix it? We've just had to postpone an exam 20 minutes before start time because I couldn't get the exam clients to talk to the dashboard consistently.

 

We actually have run two of these tests last year without any hiccups, but that was on our old flat network. Not sure if the software likes VLANs or not....

dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted
I have this EXACT issue. What did you do to fix it? We've just had to postpone an exam 20 minutes before start time because I couldn't get the exam clients to talk to the dashboard consistently.

 

We actually have run two of these tests last year without any hiccups, but that was on our old flat network. Not sure if the software likes VLANs or not....

 

I used the info from @skell in post 17 and took the 6 files from the user profile of a working system and copied them to a central location. Using Group Policy Preferences, I deploy them to only our exam user (no other). You need one set of files per room, so you need to apply the policy to the computer group but apply to the user using loopback and item-level targeting to only deploy to the user concerned.

 

12 random machines across both rooms each worked perfectly. I am going to do another demo test on Wednesday to ensure that 24 machines connect and upload at the same time.

Theblacksheep

Theblacksheep

Posted
Posted (edited)
I have this EXACT issue. What did you do to fix it? We've just had to postpone an exam 20 minutes before start time because I couldn't get the exam clients to talk to the dashboard consistently.

 

We actually have run two of these tests last year without any hiccups, but that was on our old flat network. Not sure if the software likes VLANs or not....

 

You need to enable igmp on your switch vlans. You should only need to do this on the switches used for the test short term, but more are handy.

 

Had this recently using a laptop for a student that was allowed to do a test on their own away from the other students.

Edited by Theblacksheep
FN-GM

FN-GM

Posted
Posted
I used the info from @skell in post 17 and took the 6 files from the user profile of a working system and copied them to a central location. Using Group Policy Preferences, I deploy them to only our exam user (no other). You need one set of files per room, so you need to apply the policy to the computer group but apply to the user using loopback and item-level targeting to only deploy to the user concerned.

 

12 random machines across both rooms each worked perfectly. I am going to do another demo test on Wednesday to ensure that 24 machines connect and upload at the same time.

@dhoward_westexetc use WMI queries instead of a loopback, much more reliable.

  • Thanks 2
NickDay85

NickDay85

Posted
Posted
You need to enable igmp on your switch vlans. You should only need to do this on the switches used for the test short term, but more are handy.

 

Had this recently using a laptop for a student that was allowed to do a test on their own away from the other students.

 

Ok. I can do this!

 

It doesn't explain why machines on the same VLAN are still not talking though. This has been a stressful Monday, I'll see if I can get one worker so I can try dhoward's idea...

 

This might actually be the worst software I've ever had the 'pleasure' of using. Their support team are abysmal too...

dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted
Ok. I can do this!

 

It doesn't explain why machines on the same VLAN are still not talking though. This has been a stressful Monday, I'll see if I can get one worker so I can try dhoward's idea...

 

This might actually be the worst software I've ever had the 'pleasure' of using. Their support team are abysmal too...

 

Hence why I am testing it so much! I will have run 3 demo tests of 5, 5 and 24 clients before the first live exam in December!

 

You are using the new November update I assume (probably yes if you have installed it recently, as I guess you have?)

NickDay85

NickDay85

Posted
Posted
Hence why I am testing it so much! I will have run 3 demo tests of 5, 5 and 24 clients before the first live exam in December!

 

You are using the new November update I assume (probably yes if you have installed it recently, as I guess you have?)

 

It's so annoying. Having already used this software in the past I assumed this would be a doodle to set up, safe to say I was wrong. I actually managed to run 4 demo tests, and on Friday I had three rooms totalling 28 machines all connected to their respective dashboards. Come in this morning to find red crosses on most, with no apparent pattern or reason. Going to try your suggestion now... Wish me luck!

dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted
It's so annoying. Having already used this software in the past I assumed this would be a doodle to set up, safe to say I was wrong. I actually managed to run 4 demo tests, and on Friday I had three rooms totalling 28 machines all connected to their respective dashboards. Come in this morning to find red crosses on most, with no apparent pattern or reason. Going to try your suggestion now... Wish me luck!

 

You have my best wishes for a successful resolution.

Just remember to start the Invigilator dashboard on a fresh boot of Windows, I have had this happen to me!

themightymrp

themightymrp

Posted
Posted
Further to my question above re - video in the demo, has anybody from a Leeds school got this working? Or anybody got it working on Windows XP clients? Yes, yes, I know we should be on 7 by now!! :)
dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted
Further to my question above re - video in the demo, has anybody from a Leeds school got this working? Or anybody got it working on Windows XP clients? Yes, yes, I know we should be on 7 by now!! :)

 

If you are using XP then, from reading the instructions, you need Windows Media Player 11, .NET Framework 4 full version, and Visual C++ 2012 installed.

themightymrp

themightymrp

Posted
Posted

Yeah got all of those, the software itself seems to be running fine. The only issue I have is that the video which is part of the demo test isn't doing anything. We are getting conflicting responses from Pearson, some say that there is no video on the demo, others say there is - otherwise why have a question with one on!! So I don't know now :(

 

Does anyone know if the video downloads to the server and streams from there or whether it streams live across the web?

Theblacksheep

Theblacksheep

Posted
Posted
Yeah got all of those, the software itself seems to be running fine. The only issue I have is that the video which is part of the demo test isn't doing anything. We are getting conflicting responses from Pearson, some say that there is no video on the demo, others say there is - otherwise why have a question with one on!! So I don't know now :(

 

Does anyone know if the video downloads to the server and streams from there or whether it streams live across the web?

 

No video on our demos.

 

A video was on an ICT test last year. Some PCs it worked on some it didn't, despite them being all the same.

  • Thanks 1
dhoward_westexetc

dhoward_westexetc

Posted
Posted

If it is the sports questions demo (with the BMI calculator) then, yes, there is a video on question 4/5. AFAIK it is downloaded I think. Not sure if you have the same demo.

 

Only other thing we had installed was VLC Player and Adobe Flash Player, but I do not think it is a Flash Video. I can't think of anything else as we use Windows 7 and had the video working first time.

  • Thanks 1
themightymrp

themightymrp

Posted
Posted

It is the sports questions on our demo. I have the latest Flash player installed and also the latest K-Lite codec pack with Media Player Classic. The only thing I can think of is that the video is either not downloading to the server of it streams live and a port is maybe blocked?? But I've go everything open that its asks for.

 

Thanks for the info so far

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