1.      I have noticed that the time set in the assignments editor does not appear the same on the class homepage. My supplier then told me to fix a the database to GMT+1 and everything seemed consistent. However, for some reason this then started behaving oddly again, being one hour out between the two readings after behaving OK!! Why is this behaving in this way? Surely, there must be a definitive setting? (I live in the UK). Perhaps it is the calendar facility setting that is fickle?

The reason for the behavior you are seeing is that GMT+1 doesn't account for daylight saving time (DST) which gives +-1 hour jumps during the year. To make the TA time switch together with DST, the timezone in the database should be set for the UK to GMT0BST (where the "0" in the middle is zero, not letter O).  
 

2.     The ‘assignments’ page for instructors – it is very slow in loading from whichever page I try to link to it in MapleTA. It may take in excess of half a minute. It is very strange as access and links to all other pages are fine and take place within seconds if not immediately. We carried out the vacuuming recommended by the supplier but no improvement. Why this page?

Vacuuming the database is a good start.  If you are currently using  TA 3.0, make sure that you have installed all the hotfixes issued for this version -- there were some that improved performance.

3.      I have had a handful of complaints from students that, when they have clicked on ‘grade’ on finishing an assignment, then they have been logged out and returned to the login page. When they have then logged in again, there is no record of that particular attempt at the assignment. This appears to be an intermittent, randomly occurring problem in a small minority of cases. We are sending log files to MapleTA as requested. Has anyone experienced such odd behaviour. We have rebooted but to no avail.

The login page will be shown when the TA session expires.  This happens when a student is inactive in TA for more than 30 minutes (whereupon they just need to login again and can continue where they left off).  Answered questions get recorded in the database immediately after submitting the answer, so it shouldn't be possible to lose the record of a particular assignment attempt. If however the test is set up as a practice assignment (rather than a Quiz assignment), then, by design no grade and no history is recorded. 
 

4.      We are not been able to receive emails from Mapleta. This means that, any student who has gone through the ‘forgot your password?” has found the Mapleta has changed it and it has not been sent in an email. Yes, we have checked all the addresses in the database for the relevant servers

TA has to be configured to point to your mail server.  Check that the settings for the "mail" group in the system_properties database table is correct.   The "From:" address used by Maple TA must be a valid address recognized by the mail server.  Also, the mail server must be accessible by the Tomcat user from the host where Maple TA is running.
 

And, no, it is not practical to go to v4 during teaching.

Unlike the upgrade from TA 2.5 to TA 3.0, which involved major architecture changes (use of Postgres database, and Tomcat web server), the upgrade from TA 3 to TA 4 is easy and low risk, even when done in the middle of a semester.  Still, the problems you are seeing with TA 3.0 look like they can be addressed without needing an upgrade.

-PD

  I have had a handful of complaints from students that, when they have clicked on ‘grade’ on finishing an assignment, then they have been logged out and returned to the login page. When they have then logged in again, there is no record of that particular attempt at the assignment. This appears to be an intermittent, randomly occurring problem in a small minority of cases. We are sending log files to MapleTA as requested. Has anyone experienced such odd behaviour. We have rebooted but to no avail.

This drove me crazy for months. I asked technical support for help to no avail.

The about two weeks ago, I realized that on rare occassions, MapleTA registers some students as guests, and so their grade is not recorded. When a student reports this, go to the System Homepage, look under Adminster Users, find the student and change their role.

I pointed out the bug to technical support. Here was their reply:

"Yes, there was a problem in the previous version of Maple T.A. where students could be registered with the "guest" role.  This was one of the issues that was addressed in the current version of Maple T.A. (version 4.0)."

I thought it outrageous that they did not tell me this, especially since I reported the problem months earlier. We had a real rough transition from MapleTA2.5 to 3.0, and I have been reluctant to switch from 3.01 to 4.0.

We are using 4.0 extensively this year and have not noticed this particular problem.

Mind you we used 3.01 on a small scale over the summer without having this problem also. 

Toby

PS Agree with your first two sentences.  It is amazing how little has been fixed in TA4.0

It sounds like Student "A" did not log out of their Maple T.A. session.  If Student "B" then sat down at the same computer and typed the Maple T.A. URL in the address bar they would still be logged in as Student "A".  This is because the browser keeps cookies for student "A", and on the Maple T.A. side the session for Student "A" is still active.  Without logging out, the Maple T.A. session will be active for 30 minutes (by default).

This would be similar to logging into an online banking session and then closing the browser tab/window without hitting the logout button.  If you leave your computer, anyone with access to your computer can start the browser (or open another tab), type your online banking URL, and be logged in to your session.  It is very imported to log out of web sessions, especially when using a shared computer.  If for some reason a user does not want to log out, they should at least clear the cookies.

-Bill

If you'd like you can send a snapshot of your system to support for investigation.  A snapshot consists of:

• a backup of the database
• the <mapleta>/records folder
• the Tomcat log files found in <tomcat>/logs

If you could supply the login names of Student A and Student B, along with the class and assignment that would also be helpful.

-Bill

I apologize if you feel that you're being "blamed" Alex, but that certainly wasn't my intention.  We haven't received any other reports like yours, so I simply thought that a student forgetting to logout would be the most likely explanation.  We should be able to give you more information once we receive the snapshot of your system.

-Bill