Debugging network requests in the Moodle App

Introduction

This guide will teach you how to find and report problems that can cause the Moodle Mobile app to not to work on your site.

It is especially useful for the following problems:

Unable to log in on your site
When you receive one of the following error messages in the app:
- Can not find data record in database table external_functions
- Invalid response value detected
- Cannot get course contents

Note: Remember to disable debugging again once you have finished debugging your problem.

Debugging the mobile app is not so easy, so we have provided an online web version of the app that can be easily debugged using the Chrome browser.

Open your Chrome browser and go to https://prototype.moodle.net/mobile/webapp/
Open your browser options (icon at the top-right of your browser window), then go to More tools -> Developer tools
Dock the new panels on the right side (in the new panel top-right options choose “Dock to the right” icon)
Click the Network tab (at the top-center)
Enable the filter (filter shape icon) so it changes to colour red
In the new text field displayed when enabling the filter write .php

Now you are ready to debug all the web services requests sent to your Moodle site by the mobile app.

Connect to your site and browse to the functionality displaying an error
In the right panel you will see a list of requests made by the app to your Moodle site (token.php server.php server.php etc..)
Click on each one of them (starting with the last one in the list) but skip those that don’t start with token.php or server.php
In the new sub-window open select the “Response” tab and check if you see an error
Copy the error then go to the en:Moodle Mobile FAQ Moodle Mobile FAQ in the user docs to check if there is a known solution for it
If you are unable to find a solution, post in the Moodle for mobile forum on moodle.org