Moodle 1.9.11+ asking for credentials to open some files.

[craigg]

Has anyone else had this issue?

 

It seems to be happening more with powerpoing documents?

 

After the user clicks on a document, the get a windows security prompt that says "connecting to moodle.cadcol.ac.uk"

 

Cheers

[Butters]

One of the colleges I work with has this problem and I'm just investigating it.

 

By any chance are the machines affected Windows 7 and I'm assuming your on server 2008?

[craigg]

Yes mate, server 2008 R2 and win 7 machines.

 

Have you found out anything interesting?

[Butters]

Yea it's to do with IE using a different method than any other browser when opening Office files.

 

Authentication requests when you open Office documents

 

Some of those fixes may help you depening on how your Moodle server is hosted.

 

Looks likely I'm going to have to hack around some Moodle code to block IE from doing it's stuff, if that's even possible.

[Achandler]

I've had the same problems, I reported them a while ago but got no reply here.

 

I don't know the cause though, but it affects IE and Firefox and started happening when the users passwords had needed changing (150 day limit on them).

 

I have tried a few fixes for it, including grace logons etc, but not had to much success.

 

We have had Moodle (on ubuntu), Windows 7 and Server 2003/ 2008 and 2008 R2 for about a year and never encountered these issues before. Im looking along two lines of investigation, some kind of cached passwords or remembered passwords that aren't being overwritten (maybe in my Ubuntu webserver) and Office 2010, as this seems to have made the problem even worse.

 

Though with that said, I have had reports that staff using the same accounts (in Moodle) from home, do not have these issues, this would imply in is an issue to do with our network (e.g password), but I cannot confirm this as most staff have Office 2003 on their laptops.

 

Another reason i feel it may be more network based (e.g password or maybe a policy) is on accounts with none expiring passwords, this never seems to happen no matter what version of Office we are using nor what browser. But again these accounts tend to also be affected by different group policies so these cannot be ruled out.

 

So many variables and so little time!

[Achandler]

It also happens on some shockwave "SCORM" content for us.

[Achandler]

This is definately an Office 2010 Issue, I am determined to solve it.

[Butters]

Let me know if you do as this is plaguing a customer of mine and as a Moodle host, it's next to impossible for me to fix without going down to their site.

 

Plus it's also out of my remit.

[Achandler]

I have tested, on my one desktop disabling the trusted locations function in Word, Excel and powerpoint 2010, this has to be done on each program individually. I'll check the GPO options or this later.

 

I use to have massive delays and problems login boxes with powerpoint files more then anything else (probably pictures from external sites causing this).

 

I have disabled this feature and am currently testing opening documents from multiple causes, all excel, word, powerpoint or pdf documents. When using Internet Explorer, most documents ask for your credentials a second time, but if you hit cancel it works fine. When using Firefox though, all documents download and open straight away, no credentials are asked for. I'm going to try more changes though today if I have time, and may force this change out as it seems to have stopped the credentials boxed being asked for more then once like it use to.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Achandler

[craigg]

keep us posted mate!

[Butters]

Try this.

 

Create a DWORD registry key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet called ForceShellExecute with value 1. Restart your Office application.

 

Worked for a customer of mine recently to resolve the issue.

[Achandler]

Thanks for the suggestion, I believe that is a a regkey referencing an older version fo Office though, as for me, using Office 2010, the actual version is 14.0.

 

Although the common folder does exist, the Internet within it does not.

 

Edit: However after further reading, Microsoft actually having a post recommending creating this subkey to fix a different issue, i'll create one and hope it resolves the issue.

Edited May 18, 2011 by Achandler
See above text

[Achandler]

This fix hasnt worked for me i'm afraid

[craigg]

No luck here either.

 

I'm suprised there aren't more people having this issue!

[craigg]

If you are using Apache (which i am not) this apparently works...

 

Its the post at the bottom of the page.

 

Using Moodle: Windows Security popup on Windows 7

[Achandler]

So far the above fix works for me.

[jamesss]

We have the same problem with ours at the moment (Server 2008,Win 7, IE8/9). I've tried disabling PROPFIND and OPTIONS requests in IIS, and adding our intranet site to the 'trusted sites' zone in group policy, but the problem still occurs. This is a problem only on the local network, apparently something to do with WebDAV authentication for sharepoint sites (MS assume all local intranet sites must be sharepoint). So a quick fix if your site has an external URL) would be to take your site's A record out of the internal DNS so that IE thinks it is external.

[zbjsy]

So far the above fix works for me.

 

using mooodle 2.9 and getting this security prompt, where did you put the limit propfind ?

[Achandler]

Honestly, it has been a long time since I fixed this problem, I have changed jobs since then as well!

 

I think it was in the default httpd.conf

 

linux - How to block PROPFIND (or any other method) on Apache - Server Fault

[mrverrall]

I'm suprised there aren't more people having this issue!

 

I'm surprised anyone is using Moodle 1.9.11+ !!!

 

Hope you get it sorted.