Troubleshooting

Troubleshoot network issues

  1. Can you access Kolibri when you type http://127.0.0.1:8080 in the address bar of the browser?

  2. Can you access anything from the external IP of the device running Kolibri FROM the device itself? Read more information about IP addresses.

  3. Can you ping the external IP address from another device on the network? For example, if Kolibri is on a device/computer with IP address 192.168.0.104, type this in the Terminal or Command prompt:

    ping 192.168.0.104

Firewalls

If you are having trouble connecting to Kolibri from other computers, your firewall might be blocking access.

Windows systems often come with firewalls bundled and enabled, and this may interfere with running Kolibri. That said, you probably want to keep your firewall enabled for security reasons, especially if the server is connected to the public internet.

You can try temporarily disable your firewall to see if it helps with connecting to Kolibri. If so, you’ll want to turn the firewall back on and then create a exception rule for Kolibri to allow access.

Malformed database

In case you receive the database disk image is malformed error in Terminal, it does not mean that the database cannot be fixed. The error occurs in cases where Kolibri has been shutdown uncleanly, for instance due to a power outage or a software exception.

Tip

The sqlite3 command is necessary. This can be installed with sudo apt install sqlite3 on a Debian-based system.

  1. Open a terminal and change the current working directory to your Kolibri’s home folder. Keep the terminal open and continue with the rest of the commands.

    cd ~/.kolibri

  2. Create a new directory and save the old database.

    mkdir -p malformed
cp -b db.sqlite3* malformed/

  3. Create a new database and move it to the active location.

    sqlite3 db.sqlite3 .dump | sqlite3 fixed.db
mv fixed.db db.sqlite3

  4. Remove temporary database files.

    rm -f db.sqlite3-* job_storage.sqlite3* notifications.sqlite3* process_cache/cache.db

  5. Start Kolibri.

For further assistance, please report the issue on our Community Forums, stating the operating system and Kolibri version.

Corrupted database

The instructions in Malformed database apply only to malformed databases, which is a simple form of database corruption that has been reported fixable in all cases. If those steps did not work, or you do not see the database disk image is malformed error, your database is more severely corrupted.

If your SQLite3 version is 3.29 or newer, you can use the .recover command to restore other types of database corruption. This can happen if Kolibri is terminated abruptly or if your storage media fails.

Tip

You can see your SQLite3 version by running sqlite3 --version from command line. If your database is corrupted but your SQLite3 is too old to run .recover, consider copying your db.sqlite3 file to a different system with a new SQLite3.

To apply .recover on a broken database, open your Terminal and run the following commands (the sequence is similar to above where you used .dump):

  1. Open a terminal and change the current working directory to your Kolibri’s home folder. Keep the terminal open and continue with the rest of the commands.

    cd ~/.kolibri

  2. Create a new directory and save the old database.

    mkdir -p malformed
cp -b db.sqlite3* malformed/

  3. Apply the .restore command to the database and move the restored database to the active location. Check the command line outputs for potential errors.

    sqlite3 db.sqlite3 .recover | sqlite3 fixed.db
mv fixed.db db.sqlite3

  4. Remove temporary database files.

    rm -f db.sqlite3-* job_storage.sqlite3* notifications.sqlite3* process_cache/cache.db

  5. Start Kolibri.

For further assistance, please report the issue on our Community Forums, stating the operating system and Kolibri version.

Videos are not playing

Make sure to check the system requirements to see if you can support video playback. If you encounter the error No compatible source was found for this media when you try to play videos in Firefox on Ubuntu for example, you must install the restricted extras package. If you are still unable to view videos in open source browsers like Chromium or Firefox, try using Google Chrome.

Please report any issues on our Community Forums, stating the operating system and browser you are using.

Antivirus

Some overzealous antivirus programs on Windows platform may preventively impede Kolibri or some of its components (for example python.exe) from running correctly. If that happens you need to add them to the antivirus exclusion list. Below steps refer to the program Avast, but should be similar in other antivirus applications.

  1. Open Avast.
  2. Click on Protection in the sidebar.
  3. Click on Virus Chest.
  4. Find the file python.exe in the list.
  5. Right click on the file and select Scan.
  6. If the scan is inconclusive the python.exe file is not infected with a virus.
  7. Right click on the file and select Restore and add to exclusions.

Problems with import and export from USB drives

Kolibri needs read and write access to USB drives in order to import and export channels. There are several possibilities why you may encounter issues during this procedure.

  • User account does not have access:

    • you installed Kolibri in your own environment running as a non-desktop user (for instance UWSGI)
    • you have upgraded Kolibri on Debian from a version prior to v0.10. Follow these instructions to change the ownership of Kolibri system service from one user account to another
    • to grant access to USB drives to other accounts, refer to the documentation of your operating system

  • Write access denied: Some USB drives will experience problems when they are unplugged from the computer in an unclean way. If you are denied access to write, look for options to fix or repair the file system.

    Warning

    If you are trying to export on an attached USB drive, and Kolibri displays the message Could not find a writable drive connected to the server, it is most likely a permission problem. Make sure that you can see, open and copy something on the drive yourself.

  • Data failures: Copying the data can take a long time. If you do not see the final success confirmation message after the copy apparently finishes, do not assume that the data has been imported or exported correctly. Restart the process instead, otherwise you risk inconsistent and malfunctioning data resources.

  • Hardware life expectancy: SD and flash storage drives have a limited lifespan. Reading and writing large quantities of data, especially on older or models with smaller capacity, may produce data errors over time.

Locate Kolibri log files

When you report a problem with Kolibri, we may ask you to send us Kolibri log files to help us find out why is it not working or crashing.

Open the .kolibri/ folder inside the Home folder of the Kolibri server and locate the logs/ folder. You will be able to find these two files:

  • kolibri.txt
  • debug.txt

If the problem happened earlier than the dates in the above log, you can open the archive/ folder inside logs/ to find older log files:

  • kolibri-YYYY-MM-DD.txt

Location of the Kolibri Home folder on different operating systems:

Operating system Location
Windows C:/Users/<your_username>/.kolibri/
macOS HD/Users/<your_username>/.kolibri/
Linux /home/<your_username>/.kolibri/

Warning

On Linux and MacOS systems you will need to activate the Show Hidden Files option in your file browser, in order to view the .kolibri folder.

About IP addresses

  • 127.0.0.1 IP address, or localhost, is device’s own IP address. You can use it in the browser on the device where Kolibri is running to make sure it is working correctly.
  • Aside from its own localhost address, a device running Kolibri also has an external IP address like 192.*.*.* or 10.*.*.*, under which it is recognized by other devices in the same local network. That is the IP address that you need to use in the browsers on client devices (learner tablets or computers), to connect with Kolibri server.
  • Kolibri by default runs on the port number 8080, but you can change this setting to meet your particular needs.
  • So when you type the full IP address like http://192.168.1.1:8080 in the browser of a client device, you are telling it to: “Connect to IP address 192.168.1.1 on port 8080 with the HTTP protocol, and display its content”.