Known Issues

This article covers the current known issues in Brightspace. 

Last updated - 18/11/2020

Turnitin - Error communicating with Turnitin

Issue reported: 18/11/2020

Summary: Instructors might see an exclamation mark with an error message "Error communicating with Turnitin" next to students submissions under certain circumstances.

Cause: the root cause is still unknown.

Status: the supplier is investigating the issue and is looking for a permanent fix.

When does this issue occur?

1. Similarity Report setting under Turnitin More Options is set to Generate Reports on Due Date

Calendar - a.sahin@sea.leidenuniv.nl - Outlook
Steps to Reproduce:

As an instructor:

  • Create a new assignment
  • Set a due date
  • On the Turnitin Tab under More Options select: Generate reports on due date

As test student 1:

  • Hand in your submission before the due date

As test student 2:

  • Hand in your submission after the due date

As an instructor:

  • Access the submission overview after the due date has passed.

Expected behavior: All submissions have a similarity report.

Observed behavior: All submissions that were done before the due date have a "ERROR communicating with Turnitin" message. For all submissions done after the due date, no error occurs.

Solution

To prevent this issue from happening in the future, instructors are advised to check their own Turnitin settings as stated in this article and change the settings accordingly.

Do not change the settings in an assignment where there are already submissions in the assignment. Please contact us via the Helpdeskportal if this is the case.

2. Turnitin More Options settings and/ord Due Dates are changed after submissions have been made.

Steps to Reproduce:

This only applies when there are already submissions for the assignment

As an instructor:

  • Click on Edit Assignment
  • Navigate to the Turnitin tab
  • Click on More Options in Turnitin
  • Change the Similarity Report Settings and click on Submit.

OR

  • Click on Edit Assignment
  • Navigate to the Restrictions tab
  • Change the due date and click on Save

Expected behavior: All submission still have a similarity report, or the similarity reports are being regenerated.

Observed behavior: All submissions might recieve a "ERROR communicating with Turnitin" message after the settings are changed.

Solution

To prevent this issue from happening in the future, instructors are advised not to change the Turnitin More Options settings or the Due Date after the first submission has been made in the assignment.

We strongly recommend not to change any settings of existing assignments with submissions. Please contact us via the Helpdeskportal if you have any question on this matter.

Turnitin - Low or unrealistic similarity scores

Do not change the settings in an assignment where there are already submissions in the assignment. This will result in the Error communicating with Turnitin issue. 

Issue reported: 18/11/2020

Summary: All student submissions might have low or 0% similarity scores.

Cause: Your personal Turnitin settings might prevent full collusion checks from happening. This means that student work is not being compared to each other within the current assignment.

Solution: You need to change your Turnitin settings, to ensure collusion checks are being done in future Turnitin assignments. Please follow these steps. It will take you about 10 minutes to complete these steps. Furthermore, you might need to change these settings in existing Turnitin Assignment. Do this only for assignmetns where students did not submit their work yet.

Unfortunately, we are not able to set these settings globally. However, in case you need assistance changing settings, we are more than willing to support you. Please contact us via the Helpdeskportal if you need assistance.

Kaltura Videos & Weblectures - Not loading

Issue reported: 08/09/2020

Summary: Some users might experience issue while trying to watch videos and/or weblectures in Brightspace. Either their screen remains blank or a "login.uaccess.leidenuniv.nl refused to connect" error message is shown.

Cause: the cause is still unknown

Status: the suppliers are still investigating the issue.

When does this issue occur?

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Navigate to course content where a video/weblecture is enclosed.
  2. Try to watch the video/weblecture

Expected behavior: The video / weblecture plays without trouble.
Observed behavior: Either a error screen appears, or the screen remains blank.

Workaround 1 - Hard refresh your browser

Clicking on the  refresh icon in the address bar of the browser is NOT the same as a hard refresh.

A hard refresh clears the browser’s cache for a specific page, forcing it to load the most recent version that includes changes to stylesheets or other scripts. See below how to do a hard refresh per device and browser type:

== Windows

Chrome:

  • Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.

Firefox:

  • Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.


== Mac OS

Chrome:

  • Hold down ⌘ Cmd and ⇧ Shift key and then press R.

Firefox:

  • Hold down ⌘ Cmd and ⇧ Shift and then press R.

Safari:

  • Hold down the  ⌘ Cmd key and press R

Workaround 2 - Open the video via Firefox

Please try to watch the video via Firefox. It seems that this resolves the issue most of the time.

Kaltura Live Room - Waiting for Host

Issue reported: 31/08/2020

Summary: Some instructors might experience issues while launching a Kaltura Live Room from Brightspace. They'll recieve a "Waiting for Host" message.

Cause: The cause is still unknown

Status: The supplier, Kaltura, is investigating the issue

When does this issue occur?

Steps to reproduce:

  1. As an instructor and owner of a Kaltura Live room:
    1. Click on a Kaltura Live Room link you have placed in your course content. 
    2. Click on Launch Live Room from your course's Kaltura Media Gallery

Expected behavior: The Kaltura Live Room opens with you as moderator.

Observed behavior: An waiting for host message appears, similair to the screen below.

Workaround 1 - Hard refresh your browser

Clicking on the  refresh icon in the address bar of the browser is NOT the same as a hard refresh.

When you see the error message "Waiting for Host..", try to hard refresh you browser, to see if the Kaltura Live Room will start. 

A hard refresh clears the browser’s cache for a specific page, forcing it to load the most recent version that includes changes to stylesheets or other scripts. See below how to do a hard refresh per device and browser type:


== Windows

Chrome:

  • Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.

Firefox:

  • Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.


== Mac OS

Chrome:

  • Hold down ⌘ Cmd and ⇧ Shift key and then press R.

Firefox:

  • Hold down ⌘ Cmd and ⇧ Shift and then press R.

Safari:

  • Hold down the  ⌘ Cmd key and press R


Workaround 2 - Chrome Specific: Switch to Guest Mode

Google - Google Chrome
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, click the Profile icon (could be your own image)
  3. Click Guest.

Now that you're in Guest Mode, please try to launch Kaltura Live Room again. 

Workaround 3 - Open the Kaltura Live Room via Firefox

Please try to launch the Kaltura Live Room via Firefox. It seems that this resolves the issue most of the time for Instructors. 

Still experiencing issues?

If the workarounds above did not work for you, please report an issue via this form in the helpdesk portal of Leiden University. 

Publishing Feedback for Assignments using Rubrics - Confirmation screen showing unenrolled users

Issue reported: 22/12/2020

Summary: Users might experience issues with publishing feedback for assignments using rubrics. When publishing feedback a confirmation screen pops up showing: "the following students' submissions have not been evaluated on all rubric criteria", with a list of four named persons "and ... others".

Cause: a known defect known by the supplier.

Status: the supplier is fixing this issue, the ETA of this fix is not known yet.

Solution: For this issue, no workaround is necessary. You can select Publish Anyway, the mentioned students will not be notified or have access to these assignments in any way.

Resolved:

Resolved: Kaltura Media showing Access Denied error

We recommend all users to update their browser to the latest version. 

Issue reported: 05/08/2020

Summary: Embedding Kaltura media in your course offering will sometimes result in an Access Denied error being shown instead.

Cause:  You're experiencing this issue due to a security bug related to samesite cookies. This issue occurs in ALL "OLD" BROWSERS. 

Solution: The issue is fixed in all new browsers. Please update your browser to the latest version. 

Issue fixed: 21/08/2020

When does this issue occur?

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Go to the Content area of your course
  2. Try to open a Kaltura Video OR a HTML file with a embedded Kaltura Video.

Expected behavior: The Kaltura video is shown as normally. 

Observed behavior: An Access Denied error message is shown (as shown below). 

RESOLVED HTML Editor - Cannot copy text format

Issue reported: 23/01/2020

Summary: Font, color and style can not be copied and pasted within HTML files. 

Cause: This issue is caused by a bug in the system.

Issue fixed: 25/06/2020

When does the issue occur?

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Go to the Content area of your course
  2. Click on Edit of an existing HTML document
  3. Select and copy formatted text (e.g. headings, bold or colored text).
  4. Paste the formatted text 

Expected behavior:  The copied text retains it's formatting.

Observed behavior: The text is pasted without formatting. 

Workaround - Copy paste HTML code

Desktop

Although the workaround is cumbersome, it is possible to retain the formatted text when you copy and paste the HTML source code. 

Please follow the steps below if you want to copy and paste formatted text:

  1. Create or Edit an HTML document
  2. Click on the HTML Source Editor Icon </>
  3. Copy the HTML source code
  4. Paste the copied code as desired.

Tip! Work in a bigger HTML source editor screen

1. Workaround - External HTML converter

There is another workaround available, which makes things slightly easier. 

  1. Copy all content to a text editor such as Microsoft Word. This will include any and all hyperlinks in the content.
  2. Make all desired changes.
  3. Copy the text from your text editor and paste it into a HTML-converter, such as https://wordhtml.com/
  4. Copy the source code generated by the converter and paste it into the HTML Source Code Editor in Brightspace.


This workaround does not guarantee 100% success, but aims to simplify HTML editing. Using third party tools such as the HTML-converter is always at your own risk. 

RESOLVED Document Preview Unavailable

Issue reported: 24/04/2020 14:00

Summary: Users might experience an infinite loading screen, whilst trying to view recently placed documents or assignment submissions in Brightspace.

Cause: This issue is caused by an unexpected techincal issue at our supplier's end.

Issue fixed: 24/04/2020 18:15

When does the issue occur?

Please note that PDF's are loaded properly in Brightspace. The issue only concerns files like .docx, .ppt, .excel etc. 

Students - viewing content

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Go to the Content area of a course
  2. Go to any Topic that would be a docx / ppt / excel.

Expected behavior:  The document is visible in Brightspace

Observed behavior: An infinite loading icon appears on the screen.

Instructors - placing and viewing content

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Go to the Content area of your course
  2. Click on Add
  3. Add a word/ppt/excel document from your computer to the drag and drop box (or click on browse) to place the document in your course. 

Expected behavior:  The recently uploaded file is visbile.

Observed behavior: An infinite loading icon appears on the screen.

This issue does not affect PDF files. Therefore, we advise instructors to upload files in PDF format.

If that is not possible, please take the following into account: 

Although you and your students are unable to see the documents in Brightspace, students are still able to download the document and view it on their own computer. Don't forget to put the document on visible!

Instructors - viewing assignment submissions

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Go to an Assignment in your course
  2. Click on a Submission to start assessing with Brightspace Annotation tools. 

Expected behavior:  the submission file of the student is loaded properly 

Observed behavior: Either an infite loading icon appears on the screen or you'll see a message "Document conversion in progress.."

Please note that Turnitin Feedback Studio is not affected by this issue. Therefore, you can assess students' work without trouble in Turnitin. 

For assignments that do not have Turnitin enabled: We advise you to assess students' submissions offline. Please see here for an extensive manual.

Workaround - Download document

Although you might be unable to see the file in Brightspace, you are able to download documents to your computer. 

Please follow the steps below:

  1. If you see the the load icon keeps turning
  2. Consider to download the document to your computer so you can view the file. 

Workaround - Assess with Turnitin Feedback Studio

If you have enabled Turnitin for an assignment, you are able to assess students' work  in Turnitin Feedback Studio without any troubles.

Please see this extensive manual for more information on how to use Turnitin in Brightspace.

Workaround - Assess submissions offline

Although you might not be able to assess your students' work within Brightspace, you are still able to download their work and assess offline. 

Please see this extensive manual for more information.