Pearson onscreen platform installation woes

[Zourous]

Yes that is correct, it sent me on a wild goose chase only to find it doesn't work properly now. You just have to test it thoroughly with demo tests and be prepared for any scenario should it happens i.e the test player crashes on a PC. I now check every PC before the test by pressing the alt shift & f12 and running the diagnostics from here.

[bald_pig]

We ran a test last week, all the players crashed once they'd downloaded the test, but reopened at the start of the test, the invigilator dashboard wasn't updating properly, and this was all in the same room as we'd run an exam flawlessly a month ago, and haven't touched since!

[Zourous]

Sound about right. At the beginning we had a test on Monday and then Wednesday and all fine. It came to Friday and the exam officer couldn't activate the exam on the administrator console and it threw up an error so exams all cancelled. After uninstalling and reinstalling the server software numerous times they suggested putting the software on a normal PC (the exam officers PC) and it worked! Some time later on a different day there is a power glitch on the mains where the PC with the server software is on just as the exams have started, so more cancelled exams!! We've also had problems with connecting the test players to the invigilator PC as it won't find it unless I put in the IP address manually into the config of the test player. Then some time later assume that if the test player appears with the exam login screen that it has made a successful connection to the invigilator PC, Wrong!! result: more students have their exams cancelled as I can't sort it out on the spot quick enough. With hindsight the thing to do it is press the shift, alt + F12 and check in the configuration where it is connecting to and run a check. On this occasion the IP address had changed on the invigilator PC even though it was DHCP reserved. Not Pearson's fault, but their software didn't really help in this situation. Other than that individual PC's have crashed during the tests with an error message of "A fault has occurred in blah blah blah". We tried to recover via shift, alt + F12 but it didn't work, so end up extracting various files and sending them to Pearson to see what they can recover some time later. Other than that it's gone quite well.

[speckytecky]

What a shameful disgrace this software is. I'm still trying to set it up. The Test machines and the Invigilator machines seem to tyalk to each other fine but when they send us the Demo it never appears on the Administrator console. Latest suggestion to us is to uninstall and reinstall the EES.

 

Sound about right. At the beginning we had a test on Monday and then Wednesday and all fine. It came to Friday and the exam officer couldn't activate the exam on the administrator console and it threw up an error so exams all cancelled. After uninstalling and reinstalling the server software numerous times they suggested putting the software on a normal PC (the exam officers PC) and it worked! Some time later on a different day there is a power glitch on the mains where the PC with the server software is on just as the exams have started, so more cancelled exams!! We've also had problems with connecting the test players to the invigilator PC as it won't find it unless I put in the IP address manually into the config of the test player. Then some time later assume that if the test player appears with the exam login screen that it has made a successful connection to the invigilator PC, Wrong!! result: more students have their exams cancelled as I can't sort it out on the spot quick enough. With hindsight the thing to do it is press the shift, alt + F12 and check in the configuration where it is connecting to and run a check. On this occasion the IP address had changed on the invigilator PC even though it was DHCP reserved. Not Pearson's fault, but their software didn't really help in this situation. Other than that individual PC's have crashed during the tests with an error message of "A fault has occurred in blah blah blah". We tried to recover via shift, alt + F12 but it didn't work, so end up extracting various files and sending them to Pearson to see what they can recover some time later. Other than that it's gone quite well.

[Sam_Brown]

We've solved a lot of our issues by having the admin and invigilator console both running on the server. Then all the clients just point to that. Then just have an RDP session open to the server to start and end the exam.

[t3ckn1k]

oooo well we are one step closer. After a lot of phone calls to pearson and testing and sharing logs. It seems we were missing vcredx86 2012 which they did say twice was not required. Now that is installed I aim to do some testing tomorrow but hit another odd issue.

 

I installed both the lan and offline versions only a week ago. two laptops with offline, one clickonce and one msi for testing purposes. Yesterday the clickonce did an update. If I didn't run clickonce I'd of had no idea there was updated software. Downloaded the msi and as expected it was a new version. How do you go about keeping your testing software up to date while using msi to distribute? Am I better off taking the time to install the clickonce on the machines so at least it checks and updates?

[Sam_Brown]

oooo well we are one step closer. After a lot of phone calls to pearson and testing and sharing logs. It seems we were missing vcredx86 2012 which they did say twice was not required. Now that is installed I aim to do some testing tomorrow but hit another odd issue.

 

I installed both the lan and offline versions only a week ago. two laptops with offline, one clickonce and one msi for testing purposes. Yesterday the clickonce did an update. If I didn't run clickonce I'd of had no idea there was updated software. Downloaded the msi and as expected it was a new version. How do you go about keeping your testing software up to date while using msi to distribute? Am I better off taking the time to install the clickonce on the machines so at least it checks and updates?

 

Personally... we do it by hand. We're lucky that we only have one room we do the POP exams so it doesn't take a massively long time when we have 2 of us working in tandem. I know that "you should" be able to rely on it working automatically but I just don't trust it enough to risk an exam going wrong.

[t3ckn1k]

Thanks Sam, after some research, we will have 4 classrooms of 10 computers with the lan installation as well as around 40 laptops with the offline installation. I can live with the upgrading on so many computers but how do you find out when updates are available or required? I'm just trying to work out the best solution for installation.

 

If there are no notifications, I may consider just rolling everything out as the offline clickonce test player, so they get updates automatically and everyone follows the same userguide

[speckytecky]

Yikes, on 'laptops' that's brave as even the Pearson guide recommends steering clear of laptop installs!

 

Thanks Sam, after some research, we will have 4 classrooms of 10 computers with the lan installation as well as around 40 laptops with the offline installation. I can live with the upgrading on so many computers but how do you find out when updates are available or required? I'm just trying to work out the best solution for installation.

 

If there are no notifications, I may consider just rolling everything out as the offline clickonce test player, so they get updates automatically and everyone follows the same userguide

[t3ckn1k]

well that's clever, how do you do offline tests if its not on laptops. I think there will be some issues with H&S sending out staff with Computers and Monitors.

[howartp]

Anyone had problems with the test client locking pre-login? My friend at another school is struggling; it sounds like some other software is running on the PC which is constantly tripping the test-violation even before login?

[themightymrp]

Watch out for screensavers and monitor power settings! I had the same issue and had to disable them in the rooms we do the tests in

[howartp]

Watch out for screensavers and monitor power settings! I had the same issue and had to disable them in the rooms we do the tests in

Ah, cool - I'll pass that on.

 

Cheers.

 

Peter

[Paulnic]

Hi Guys,

 

And thanks to Peter. After four days getting nowhere, back and forth to Pearson Support, re-imaging PCs etc etc I've received this from Pearson Tech Support. Appears to work but need to do further testing this aft.

 

The test violation is specific to the Test Player; aside from the server the only difference now is the software is an updated version (v4.3.2922.1) and this could potentially be causing the error, as we've had a few centres experiencing a similar issue since upgrading.

 

 

So I'm going to send you the original MSI installer package for the previous version of the software (v2.06732.27827) and if possible I'd like you to re-install all components, this should then work fine as the new version is not a mandatory upgrade.

 

 

I'll send the file via We Transfer...

[howartp]

Wonderful!

 

(That is said both sarcastically at Pearson, and wholeheartedly at Paul!)

 

Glad you've got somewhere, and thanks for feeding back to us.

[speckytecky]

Anyone able to advise on how long the BTEC PE exam takes on average to run please?

[Boredguy]

Ours is normally done within an hour based on the ones we did last year... then again we have an exam scheduled for it this afternoon... better make sure the accounts are working!

[mrbios]

Ours did their PE BTEC exam yesterday, it was 1 hour for most, with 1 hr 15 for some.

 

Only two minor issues from our first experience of a live test, first one one PC wouldn't start the test and the other was one PC randomly going to "test violation error" or something along those lines, apparently it was likely to do with some background software, no idea which one though. If you get that violation error appear saying "call the invigilator" then press shift+alt+f12 and enter the password to unlock the rest (i can't remember what the password was, but you might have to ring them...it's not one we set, there's a PDF explaining all that though )

[Boredguy]

Well our test is currently in progress, and only 1 student has an extra 15 minutes (which is a shame you can't see that before hand apparently)

 

I'm hoping for a nice quiet afternoon as there isn't much that can go wrong other than loss of focus, in which case they have to call Pearson tech support not me

[linkazoid]

We had to use this today. Meh.... Over complicated with the need for the invigilators PC and Administration software.

 

Has no one found a way of scripting the software to point to the invigilator PC? It's a bit of a PITA having to tell students every time.

[howartp]

Ours just find the invigilator PC when the software is launched. It's a while since I was directly involved, but we don't do anything fancy that I recall.

[Abe]

Just make sure the Invigilator dashboard is running (doesn't matter if you've logged on yet) before launching the test player on the student PCs.

 

As long as the Invigilator PC is on the same sub-net as the students ones, then the clients should find it almost immediately.

[ITGuyWestMidlands]

You can customise the msi with orca but it means having a differnt msi or transform for each room...

[6Foot2]

Students were taking an exam yesterday using this software when one of the sessions crashed. We made several calls to the helpdesk and got a different member of support each time. This wouldn't be so bad but the advice we got each time differed also. The student eventually could not finish the exam and his 13 of 18 answers were not submitted.

 

We called them on multiple occasions because the advice given by the previous member of the helpdesk did not work. We kept the last person on the line while we tried to recover the session. He accused us of resetting the session but we know that was not the case. The student will now have to sit the exam again at a later date and we are submitting a report of what happened to the board.

[hyb80]

"New software upgrade available

________________________________________

 

We have released a new version of the software which has some minor improvements and bug fixes.

 

Please note that this is not currently a mandatory upgrade but if you have been experiencing issues where the Test Player crashes upon launch or when a candidate logs into a test, then it is recommended to install this new version as it resolves this problem.

 

If you would like to upgrade please follow the below links to the installation guides"

 

"Please note that this is not currently a mandatory upgrade" is my favourite part, lately *touches huge piece of wood* these have worked with little problem so I aint touching it!!!!