Vocareum Troubleshooting

These are steps for troubleshooting Vocareum issues.

Preparation step: do you need to save your work locally?

Issues that aren't resolved with a simple kernel restart or kernel>reconnect may result in your work being lost. Therefore before attempting the troubleshootinyg steps below, copy your code into a local file to ensure you don't lose anything. You can attempt File>Save as and confirm it downloads, but if it doesn't then you will need to copy and paste into a local filetype of your choice (recommend notepad++). If you do lose any of your work it'll most likely be only the most recent code, but it's good practice to save all of it locally just in case.

Dealing with excessive printed output

1. From the "Actions" dropdown select "Clear notebook output".
2. Click the Jupyter icon. This will bring up a file browser where you can see all the files in your workspace. You should see a file with the original notebook name (something like main.ipynb or part1.ipynb). You should also see a file with the same name having a "clean" prefix (clean.main.ipynb or clean.part1.ipynb). You can interact with these files by checking the box next to them and choosing one of the options that populates.
3. Rename or delete the original notebook. Renaming is preferred (i.e. main.ipynb -> dirty.main.ipynb).
4. Rename the "clean" prefixed notebook file to whatever the original filename was (i.e. clean.main.ipynb -> main.ipynb)
5. Continue to work in the renamed clean notebook. Make sure to remove whatever was causing the excessive prints.

Resetting To Startercode

If you want to reset the assignment back to the starter code choose "Reset assignment" from the "Actions" dropdown. This should only be done if you accidentally deleted some instructor cells or broke something. Otherwise this will not help you in any way. Make sure to save any work which you want to keep in your local machine. You will have to copy/paste any solutions which you previously got credit for back into the notebook in order to get credit for them on subsequent submissions. Otherwise your score may not update (See "About The Autograder").

Kernel disconnected and will not re-connect

Refresh the page using the refresh button in your browser (should be at the very top/left next to the back and forward buttons).

Unresponsive notebook

1. Verify that no cells are in a running state. (There will be a [*] to the left of the cell). If an individual cell is hanging there is more than likely some kind of non-terminating control flow (like an infinite loop) or an inefficient process.

   • If an individual cell is hanging interrupt the kernel (stop button) and try running other cells. If the other cells run, the problem is the code in the hanging cell.

2. If there is no hanging cell refresh the page (refresh button on browser).

Submit button/other Vocareum buttons disappeared

Sometimes the Vocareum buttons disappear even though the notebooks still runs. In that case, please refresh the page to see if the buttons appear. If not, please close then page, then re-open it from Canvas (this won't be a problem as long as Honorlock is still running). If you're still having issues then please make a private piazza post.

Grading issues

Typically these grade issues are actually the normal, expected behavior. However, the information below should help you confirm that and address it.

Passed! showing in the test cell, but no points appearing in the grade report on the right

Check the grade report. This is generated after you submit (in the drop-down that appears after you hit submit), or it should be accessible via one of the upper right buttons. The report you see there should show the full assignment, and any errors that appeared when it ran. Most likely, it generated an error during testing and it'll show there.

Points awarded in grade card on the right, but my score didn't go up

If the points are shown then you got points, but your overall score is always the single, highest score for a submission. That means if you passed a new exercise but one of your old ones is now failing, your score may not go up or change if the old score was higher (ex: you solved exercise 6 which is worth 1 point, but exercise 5 is now failing and that was worth 2 points)

The above are just a few examples of questions related to grades that we get that are actually intended behavior. If your question isn't answered by any of the above, please ensure you've read all of the exam materials and then make a piazza post to have us investigate.