Upgrading Moodle Resolves the “reCAPTCHA V1 IS SHUTDOWN” Error

Often times when we are contacted about upgrading software on websites it is due to an assumption that doing that will resolve some error or other problem occurring with the website. In a lot of those cases doing an upgrade will not resolve the issue as it has no connection to the version of the software in use. That would be a good reason for people to not try to self diagnose issues with their websites instead of bringing in someone that has more expertise, as they could end up spending a lot of money on an upgrade and not being any closer to having the problem resolved while the real issue can sometimes very easily be resolved if someone that knows what they are doing is handling things.

A recent exception to this situation is with Moodle websites that use its built-in support for Google’s reCAPTCHA service. Support for the v1 API of reCAPTCHA ended in March. When Moodle websites running older versions of Moodle are set to use the reCAPTCHA feature now they will show the following error message:

For those currently running versions 3.1-3.4 of Moodle the solution is to do a minor upgrade as support for the v2 API was added in 3.1.11, 3.2.8, 3.3.5, and 3.4.2. For those running older versions those releases are no longer supported, so you will need to upgrade to a supported release. That would have been a good idea to do some time ago anyway considering that the previous version, 3.0, stop receiving security updates just over year ago.

We offer both one time upgrades of Moodle as well as upgrades on a subscription basis.