Knowledge Base

Moodle install/update through Plesk fails: Non-zero exit status returned by script

Symptoms

On attempt to update/install Moodle to version 3.9 the following error is shown:
PLESK_ERROR: moodle 3.8.3-130 has failed: Non-zero exit status returned by script.

If Moodle is installed, the website goes into maintenance mode.

The following error can be seen on /var/log/plesk/panel.log:

!! database mariadb (5.5.5-10.1.44-MariaDB-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) !!
[System] version 10.2.29 is required and you are running 10.1.44 -

Cause

MariaDB version installed is not the minimum supported version. The generic error and website put on maintenance mode are Moodle bug #APSI-1761 which will be fixed in future extension updates.

Resolution

As a workaround, upgrade MariaDB and re-do the Moodle update.

In case the MariaDB upgrade is not possible, in order to remove the website from maintenance mode:

Connect to the server via SSH
Run the following to disable Moodle maintenance utility:

# /opt/plesk/php/7.X/bin/php /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/learning/admin/cli/maintenance.php –disable

Note: Make sure to use the same PHP version as used by the domain.

Note: In some cases, removing Moodle from maintenance mode may break the website CSS/JS. In such cases please follow this article