#138 Problem using SEB 2.2.2 and MAC OS 10.15.7 while trying to access an exam

[Francisco González]

Have a test prepared to only be accesible via SEB. Worked fine with Windows, IOS and MAC OS up to 10.15.5, but the problem has just ocurred when several users updated the Macs to 10.15.7. because now the "start answering" button does not apear, same that obviously happens when you attempt to access de test without using SEB. Sending captures of before, after, codes, etc.
Error: MUST USE AN APROVED VERSION OF SAFE EXAM BROWSER TO RESPOND THIS TEST
Insist, with MAC OS 10.15.5 all works great and can respond exam.
Thank you very much for your time.
Fran.

[Daniel Schneider]

Thank you for the additional information. Are you absolutely sure that those students all used SEB 2.2.2 for macOS? As every SEB version requires a different Browser Exam Key. So if some students used SEB 2.2.1 and some 2.2.2, that would only work if you copied the Browser Exam Keys from SEB 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 into the quiz settings.

The macOS version should not have an influence on the Browser Exam Key the same SEB version calculates, but theoretically Apple might have changed some relevant detail from 10.15.5 to 10.15.7. I have to check if I have a test machine with an older macOS version than 10.15.7 and then calculate the Browser Exam Key with the same SEB 2.2.2 version on both macOS versions. But you should be able to calculate the Browser Exam Key with SEB 2.2.2 on macOS 10.15.7 and add it to the quiz settings, then it shold work also for students which use 10.15.7.

[Francisco González]

I even did this: tried with my Macbook with SEB 2.2.2 and macOs 10.15.5 to prove them it worked, but as three of my students had the same issue i upgraded my macbook to 10.15.7 and tried at home and had exactly the problem they described to me and now i sent to you.

[Daniel Schneider]

Well, you're doing something wrong. When I load your config file into SEB 2.2.2, then the Browser Exam Key (in Preferences / Exam) is:
fb57f77e38c60639cee5f31efbda9cf332be830f3f2ae35547eae5beee8d7114
I tried it with SEB 2.2.2 running on macOS 10.15.7, macOS 10.14.6 and macOS 10.13.6, all display the same Browser Exam Key. So it's highly unlikely that running this SEB version on macOS 10.15.5 would generate another Browser Exam Key.

In your Moodle screen shot, you don't have this Browser Exam Key in the field "Allowed browser exam keys". Instead I see that you copied the Config Key for that config file
54e5923b007712935f2c5836097822f4dff6199bcd983cdcb8d83e0f41b13181
into that field. That is wrong, the Config Key is not supported by that version of Moodle. To use the Config Key (which is same for all SEB versions, Mac, Windows, iOS), you need to use Moodle 3.9 or the new SEB Moodle deeper integration plugin in Moodle 3.7 or 3.8. See the section Using SEB with Moodle in the SEB manual.

[Francisco González]

Still dont understand while it worked before but not now, but have copy pasted the exam key you gave to the "allowed browser exam keys" (left the other keys just in case) and has worked with my SEB 2.2.2 and MacOs 10.15.7.
Thank you very much Daniel for your time and dedication.
Fran.

[R Koffijberg]

I'm afraid i've had the same problem. I've defined a key on my mac mini 10.13.6 (17G11023) and saw on a student macbook that in 10.15.17 it had changed to another key. When adding this new key to Moodle everything worked fine again...

[R Koffijberg]

10.15.7 excuse me

[Daniel Schneider]

Can you send us the configuration file with which this happened? The only possible explanation is that some special formatting issue would cause the Browser Exam Key to be calculated differently. But as I can't reproduce that with other config files, it would probably happen only with config files with some specific content.

Otherwise I would assume that not the exact same SEB version was used, for example SEB 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 (which calculate different Browser Exam Keys). Also possible that a student tried to use a manipulated SEB version.

[R Koffijberg]

Sure. It even seems that different computers generate different codes.. For this one i found 2 different codes on the latest Catalina version (next to my original one). Maybe it's not (only) the Catalina version but something else.

[Daniel Schneider]

As this is an encrypted config file, I would need its settings password and the SEB admin password used in it (if one is used), you can either use a private message to send it to me or we could try if I can reproduce it if you save the file again with removed passwords (which could alter the file and therefore would produce a different key).

[Daniel Schneider]

Are you aware that whenever you save a configuration file, the Browser Exam Key changes, even if you didn't change any of the settings? This is because a random encryption salt value is regenerated. So you always have to use the identical, not re-saved config file if you're testing it on different computers.

[R Koffijberg]

I must add that these were created in Moodle 3.8 and are used in 3.9 (since we recently changed versions, but students were already informed).

[Daniel Schneider]

I'll have a look at it. As a workaround, I would recommend to use the Config Key with Moodle 3.9 (built-in) or 3.7/3.8 with the new plugin.

[SEB Support]

In this thread I answered some similar Moodle – SEB for macOS question. Please test if your issue still happens with SEB 2.3RC (link see below):

A few things to consider:

• Make sure to start with a freshly generated SEB config file (start with default settings and make your changes to that) with a current SEB version. Some very old SEB versions created some wrong settings key (for example allowWLAN instead of the correct key allowWlan). If you base your current config file on some files generated by an old SEB version (this also applies to some of our sample config files from demo.safeexambrowser.org/exams or safeexambrowser.org/testing, it might still contain such a wrong key. If a config file contains both the keys allowWLAN and allowWlan, the Config Key will not be calculated correctly in new SEB versions.
• Make sure to use the latest SEB versions, as older versions had issues with generating the correct Config Key with some SEB config files. We just discovered another Config Key issue in the current macOS version 2.2.2 (related to the preset settings for prohibitedProcesses, which are different in the Windows and Mac versions). This issue is fixed in version SEB 2.3 for macOS, so please test your fresh settings with the release candidate version SEB 2.3RC for Mac (github.com).
• SEB 2.4.1 is reportedly not always working correctly with the new SEB deeper integration plugin in Moodle 3.9 (or 3.8 if installing the plugin manually there). The new SEB support was officially only tested with SEB 3.x for Window.