I have jpg images which display just fine, then for no apparent reason they disappear, only showing the file name. Is this a bug? Am I doing something wrong?
I have jpg images which display just fine, then for no apparent reason they disappear, only showing the file name. Is this a bug? Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks,
I was wondering if this was a Chrome issue as it was clean on a mobile
browser. Either way, this doesn't happen with other sites, so that may just
be a deflection.
I reloaded the graphics to clear it up.
On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 8:03 AM, jdick@andover.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>
This is dejavu. I was coming here to ask the same question. I experienced this as an instructor when students couldn't see images I'd put in quiz questions. Canvas Help told me to refresh the page, but students can't really do that in a quiz. So I had to stop putting images in quizzes.
Now, I'm an admin and we're trying to put a standard home page in all our courses. I added the jpeg to Files and created a Page with the image on it for about 50 courses. They all looked fine on my computer, but then I learned that when the instructors opened the Page in their course the image wasn't displaying.
What is another solution other than emptying the cache? You can't tell the whole campus to do this just so they can view the banner on the homepage. I mean, you can, but most won't know how.
Right - clearing cache is only a stop gap. There has to be an issue here. Anyone know how to ask Canvas to look at this?
Michael, there are numerous variables that might account for this: where the images reside, how they were added to the item, where they appear within the course. Canvas Support would need to have a look within the course itself to determine why this might be occurring in each case, so if this is happening to you, please initiate a support case (How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor?)
I've had the images not appear before. It's a very intermittent problem. But if everyone can't see the same image, I would suspect that maybe the image is linked to somewhere those users don't have access. I've had content specialists copy and paste content from page into a different course. The picture works for the content specialist because they have access to both courses, but the teacher doesn't have access to that first course. So the teacher sees a bad image link. The content specialist never knew anything was wrong until someone told them the images weren't working.
This happened to me on a canvas.net course in January, and the Canvas.net people said it was operator error.
I always put all images in my class's file section, so don't have this
angle on the problem.
On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 5:19 AM, crafte@easternflorida.edu <
I'll add some more details. I was adding the same jpeg from the old course to the new course's Files. Then I was copying and pasting the html from the old course into the new course's Page. I thought it was working because it looked ok on my computer. From what others have said, I can understand how it might have worked because I had access to both locations, but it didn't work for the instructor who didn't have access to the course I copied from. Maybe that explains why when I was teaching my students couldn't see some of my images. They might have been copied from my other courses, which students didn't have access to. Just my latest working theory.
Run the Validate Links tool under Settings and it will find any broken images, files, or links in a course: How do I validate links in a course?
Copy and paste won't work from course to course even if you uploaded the file or image to both courses because it generates a unique ID number for each file.
Helpful if the images are actually missing or the file path is wrong, but there is a repeated issue with images that are in correct spot not showing , then reappearing later with no changes made. I've encouraged some of my students to refresh multiple times eg using F5 and this sometimes gets the missing images.
Image file location can definitely be an issue, but it is still the case that images occasionally don't display correctly even when they are located in an area the viewer has access to. This happens to me all of the time. On one visit the images don't display correctly and on the next visit they do.
The comment of clearing the cache is helpful, but I agree that that isn't always going to be a viable solution for many cases- students and faculty not aware that this is what they need to do, or even more importantly for students taking a quiz.
Yes this is exactly what I am finding, images are correct,in correct spots, linked correctly, still vanish sometimes then reappear later. ..
Yes, we are having exactly the same issue. It does not seem to be a cache/refresh issue as on one page the images will (sometimes) not display properly, but on other pages the images will display perfectly - without refreshing. This is very frustrating.
And different people in the same course see images when others can't.
I think it is a cache issue, but again, teachers/students will not know to clear their cache. I think this is something Canvas needs to work on fixing.
We are experiencing broken images in our environment today. Our logo isn't appearing the upper left corner, no images showing in global announcements we post to the Canvas Dashboard, no custom images we have uploaded for Course Cards on the Dashboard, no embedded images in course pages, etc. I've reported this to Instructure tech support, and my case number is 03207052.
Updated
One of our IT staff needed to whitelist some Amazon web servers that Cisco had recently tagged as malicious. That has seemed to fix the issues we were experiencing earlier today.
My team is also having this issue...fairly often! Images disappear, but refreshing them brings them back (sometimes after a few refreshes). Even if all new files are uploaded and fresh pages are made with those graphics, they still disappear. It's not the linking. Clearing the cache should not be the only answer to this. Why is this happening??? What is the real solution???
Hello,
This has happened to some of my teacher's also, sadly when reported to Canvas support I get the usual brush off and are told to clear cache which is a temporary solution because the images will "disappear" again for no reason or are told that they were not uploaded properly!
I have verified that the images were first uploaded either within files or the Images option and still images would "disappear". Never got a real solution to the issue!
Glad to see it's not just "ME"!.
I've opened a case for this issue from my account Practical Academics. Case # if you can use it is #
| 03211628 |
Michel
Here is the response from L1 help desk. Please let me know your experience with any/all of these and I will relay back to L1.
Update your browser - updating your browser may fix any problems you have with Canvas, please see this guide on which browsers are supported by Canvas
Clear your browser history - Clearing your browser history, cookies and cache helps with accessing web pages which are causing you problems. Please refer to these guides, How to clear cache on PC or How to clear cache on MAC
Open Chrome in Incognito Window - Opening Chrome in Incognito Window will disable any Chrome Extensions/Plugins. This will help us identify if it is a browser related issue.
Here is how to access an "Incognito Window":
https://screencast.com/t/TXHEVexXPHb
Try using a different PC - If you have access to a another PC or Mac, try viewing the Canvas page there and see if you get similar issues, if you do not get any issues, we can assume it may be an issue with your computer settings.
Check your Internet Connection - If you are using wireless, try connecting to cable if you can.
Here is my reply:
Please see the thread in the community discussion referenced in the initial ticket. Since there are so many folks experiencing this problem, I think you can eliminate browser, internet, and pc as sources of the problem.
What's next?
Yes, this is really a Canvas issue since it doesn't occur with all the other websites we all visit on the same browsers all day everyday. Thanks for trying. I wish Canvas cared more about fixing this.
Briana VanBuskirk, Yaddira Balderrama-Smalls, Michael Freedman, and Tamy Chapman...
We had images that disappeared in our Canvas environment a couple days ago (see my above posting). For us, this was not an issue on Instructure's end. I chatted with their tech support people, and they could not replicate the issue on their end. I ended up chatting with one of our IT people on campus, and he determined that Cisco was tagging some Amazon web servers as malicious. So, he white-listed those servers, and we are back in business. I'm not saying this is the case for your schools, but it might be worth checking out.
So your images were externally linked? The images I am using are housed
within the Canvas course.
Our images were housed in one of two spots (nothing externally linked)...depending on the situation:
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the information which might come in handy if this continues next year. I did not have this happen in a while but it has happened and I was not able to give my teachers a reason why that was happening.
FWIW, recently two of our faculty independently reported that their course images don't display properly in their latest version of Safari but the images display fine in other browsers or in PCs. Clearing cache does not solve the problem. One of them is able to fix the issue by going to the Develop Develop menu in the menu bar, disable and then renable images, then refresh the page. (See Use the Safari Develop menu <https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=link&apdid=sfri20948&viewlocale=en_US&bookId=El%20Capitan%20Safari%20HelpPP506>.) If you are seeing problems in Macs, perhaps give this a try?
I have been dealing with this issue for months. I would replace the images (housed inside the course under files) only to have it occur again and again. I had IT look into it; tried various browsers (with the most recent updates), cleared cache repeatedly but that only worked temporary.
I found that Firefox is the only browser that consistently displays images. However, this doesn't really solve the issue. Learners will use their preferential browser which means that images may not display properly thereby, reducing the quality of course and possibly damaging the relationship we are building with learners.
This is a helpful thread. I found using a different browser helped but we cannot ask students to switch browsers or refresh their pages. I hope this can be fixed.
Wendy
Hi Michael,
You are not doing anything wrong. This has been an ongoing issue for the better part of 8 months. I think I first noticed it in December 2017, others noted it happened before then from memory.
there is a much more complete discussion with links to numerous other cases reporting the same issue that can be found: Why are my jpeg images disappearing?!!!
For me currently, I notice the images disappearing some days however after navigating around canvas, doing some work, and not touching them, eventually, they pop back up.
Clearing cache/cookies doesn't fix anything, it happens across multiple computers/browsers.
Does anyone else find that images re-appear of their own accord after a few hours?
I was experiencing this issue today and yesterday as well. I switched to Chrome over Safari long ago because my images were appearing as broken images. It seemed to work for me. Then just recently I saw the images broken. It was intermittent though. So, for example, the page banner would indicate it was a broken link, then it would reappear for me with no issues. Very strange.
I did just have a computer update, though. What are the odds we are all working on a Mac though? Probably not.
The big takeaway from my observation is that the images did reappear. It was very strange.
Canvas tech support continues to maintain this is a cache issue. Here is the
updated comment and my reply.
Meghan, the thread includes examples and screenshots of disappearing
graphics.
Correct me if I am wrong, Clearing the cache means that all of my cookies
get cleared and I will have to re-login to all of my sites each time I do
this. A terrible inconvenience for me and all of my students. So much so
that I will not want to put images in my courses! Isn't there a better way?
On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 7:21 PM, caldera@sxu.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>
This is an ongoing issue in Canvas - popping up for years now. Unfortunately, there has been no permanent fix so far. I haven't collected data on it, but it seems to me that the timing for when this issue emerges may be associated with New Releases? Here are just a few links to previous occurrences.
To get Canvas engineers to look at this (e.g. beyond L1 or L2 help), it seems important to communicate the scope of the recent emergence of the issue. The only way I know to do this is for those experiencing it to try and coordinate regarding Problem Report submissions. It is a hassle, but I have seen it work in the past....
Person A submits a Problem Report and then posts their case number to the most recent Community discussion on the issue. Then Person B includes Person A's case number in their own Problem Report submission, and follows up by posting their case number to the community, Then Person C includes case numbers from Person A and Person B in their Problem Report submission, and follows up by posting their case number, and so on.
I've escalated to my CSM team:
Thanks, Quinn, I want to reiterate two points:
I'm sorry this feels like a struggle to you, but I can assure you that we're all here to help find the best solution. Making your CSM aware is great, but I'd also encourage you to follow up with the support ticket and help them escalate and research/troubleshoot further.
To you're point #2, I have found that it is very common to try/recommend a cache clear as the first troubleshooting activity; browsers do funny things.
Support folks have a baseline of troubleshooting questions that they start with, so what the support person sent you wasn't for lack of trying, they have to start somewhere. What I haven't seen in this thread is if you have actually tried a different browser or a different computer when you are seeing this issue yourself? I know that your students are experiencing this sometimes, and it's more difficult to troubleshoot with them. This is why I ask if you have tried it?
There is also a chrome add-on that you might want to try? Stefanie found this tool not too long ago and it has worked fabulous when we've needed to troubleshoot cache/cookie issues with Jive for our community users. EditThisCookie - Chrome Web Store
Rene, thanks for mediating.
I am copying progress to both sources: keeping those in this
thread informed of tech support's suggestions, and sharing comments from
this group in the ticket (#03211628). Are you able to see the ticket?
I am not playing one group against the other but trying to bridge the
structural divide that exists between the community forum and the help desk.
You can see in the community thread some frustration (help desk is
stonewalling). Please understand that I am pursuing this from a 'we're in it
together' posture. We both, collectively, have the same customers and want
Canvas to be flawless.
My take is that this is a tricky, occasional issue that needs attention.
Consider this argument: even if clearing the cache is the solution, do we
(Canvas and Canvas customers) want to have to periodically tell our users
that this is the solution? It is a significant inconvenience. As I said, I
know of no other Saas Application that has this problem. So, even if it is
the nature of JPGs on Canvas to occasionally disappear, then it is a design
opportunity to solve. As the provider, I believe Canvas has to take
ownership of this and ferret out the solution or come up with an alternate
design.
Michael
On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 7:57 AM, Renee Carney <instructure@jiveon.com>
Hi Michael
Part of me wants to side with Instructure on this, and just because the major browsers seem to update about every 49 seconds, and I don't know how an app programmer could ever keep up.
However, I also note that I (and many other folks) use a great many web-apps, and I don't think I have ever had to switch browsers to keep any of those other web apps working. And, out of all the many apps I use, there are only a few that are not totally browser agnostic. So somewhere in the world of web-app development, there is a coding formula that keeps the app current with any browser with any current revision - yes, I recognize that some apps will not perform well on some outdated browsers.
I hate telling my users that if Canvas starts performing poorly on one browser, they should try another one. I also hate telling my users that they really should avoid IE and Edge, despite being listed as supported browsers, because Canvas really does perform very poorly on both of them. I have users who will ask me what I mean when I say "browser", so the thought of switching browsers is a true inconvenience for them.
I am not a coder, so I have no understanding of what it takes to make things work as expected on a browser, but I still trust Instructure's Canvas engineers to work it out. I am, however, becoming a tad bit uneasy about Canvas Support. I have experienced a couple brush-offs and incorrect answers recently, I know our entire state CTC system had to sic our guard-dog CSMs on them recently to get an issue fixed, and I hear other similar stories in here. I suspect that may be an effect of the very rapid growth of Canvas over the last couple years. Perhaps training issues, or perhaps just not a sufficient access to engineers, I don't know, but I hope that improves, as it has always been one of the very best things about working with Instructure.
Kelley
Kelly, thanks for your comments.
I see this as a management issue. When Instructure was smaller, as with any
start-up, they were hungrier, more customer focused. As organizations grow,
it is natural to systematize processes and add layers; and for lower level
employees to hide in their silos. It is up to the management to sustain the
customer-focus value, to grab ahold of any quality issue and chase it down.
It doesn't matter to me where the fix is - if it's pilot error, great.
Re-educate the users. But Canvas needs to own this, directly respond to the
users, and not let it fester in the community.
Michael
On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 8:39 AM, Kelley L. Meeusen <instructure@jiveon.com>
As numerous individuals have commented, many of us have tried multiple browsers, different computers, cache clearing etc... These efforts only provide a temporary fix. Clearly, this issue goes well beyond one individual, one computer or one browser. We cannot ask our learners to continually clear cache or add third-party add-ons to browsers. This seems to be a prolonged systemic problem within the Canvas LMS that needs to addressed globally.
Please know, I wasn't suggesting different browsers, computers, or a cache clear as a fix, and I don't think support was either. It is a first step in troubleshooting and identifying a root of a problem. As Stefanie and others have said, this problem can present for so many different reasons that it's important to narrow down.
yes couldn't agree more, some of my(distance) students are 5 years old! I can't ask them to clear caches.....issue needs fixing by canvas so its not students having missing images when those images are actually sitting there in correct spots linked or embedded correctly in the course.
I, too, have had this problem intermittently over the last year and half or so, however, it is only the students who have it (I use a Mac, by the way). I put images in tons of quiz questions, and then this problem shows up occasionally. When I suggest different browsers to the students, it doesn't work. I have never heard, nor suggested, the cache issue. For me, it has always happened with quiz questions that were created in an earlier Canvas course that I then imported into the new course, so the files don't actually exist in the current course. My fix has been to re-upload the image directly into that course, delete the image from the quiz question, and then re-add it from the file that now exists in the course. While this works for my issues, it undermines the whole value of importing content into the course if I have to go back and remake it.
Hello Elizabeth Schoene ,
I could see why the images used in Course A quizzes might not load as images into quizzes that were imported into Course B unless the images in the Course A Files were also imported. In case it helps, I always upload any images that I use in my courses into my Course Files first - before using them in a quiz. Then, when importing content from one course to the next, I always import the Course Files images as well. Even so, I still run into this disappearing images issue periodically.
This is super helpful! Thank you!
I guess every company has its buggaboo (persistent challenges if you don't speak "Kelley"), and for Canvas it seems to be browsers.
I started using IE when it first came out in 1995. I started teaching online not long after that, and continued to use IE without issue. Over the years I switched LMSs several times and through all those transitions/migrations I continued to use IE. Then in 2012 I/we/our CTC system switched to Canvas. I promptly had to switch to Firefox, because I heard Canvas performance was consistent on it, but was clearly not performing well on IE. Canvas still seems to perform fairly consistently on Firefox and equally so on Chrome (thank God), but it is hit or miss with other browsers. Lately (I hate it when old people say "lately", because that could mean any time in the last decade or two) Canvas has been periodically hinky (another Kelley term) in Firefox, and awhile back it was almost useless to attempt to use Canvas in Chrome.
I think I am going to simply chalk it up to this whole silly age of information technology infancy thing. Go with the flow. Stay flexible, and all that stuff!
He who remains flexible shall not be bent out of shape! Besides, at my age if I don't stay flexible, I could break a hip, or my mind or something!
Kelley
(hope the emoji comes through)
This is the sorry state of our tech marketplace:
1) Interoperability challenges - there are so many moving parts it is
inevitable that there be compatibility issues.
2) Development pushes out patches and releases as quickly as possible in
accordance with Agile methodology: meaning they rely on the customer for
feedback - no QA test lab can do it all.
3) There are all kinds of emotional barriers to escalation. The presumption
is that the tech guys know their stuff. So they drop the first line fix
(clear the cache) on the user, who just goes along. Heck, it must be pilot
error. "I must be an idiot." If I couldn't pull together so social proof
from this thread - other users citing their own experience - that's where
this issue would die: an unresolved minor issue.
Therefore: organizations need to be ever so vigilant in reaching across
barriers to nip little niggling issues in the bud before trust between user
and support is broken. This is how tech companies die. They stay in
their bubbles. Goodwill is squandered.
M
On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 9:26 AM, rcarney@instructure.com <
Ok, I took a look at your ticket, and I dove deeper in conversation with one of our support managers - who also looked at your ticket.
Before looking at the tickets she had many anecdotal cases similar to what people have posted in this thread, including:
there's _usually_ a good reason for this happening. One I saw the other day was linking directly to pictures hosted on another site that required a login, and thus the images were not accessible for viewing anywhere else. The same is true for images hosted somewhere with site settings keeping them from being allowed to be viewed anywhere else.
We've also seen that for users who have somehow (because of settings on their computer image used for all school computers) viewed the page using old stored info on the machine - i.e. their machine sent the wrong time in its communication with the web browser and it couldn't pull up the correct, updated info.
_sometimes_ there's a bug ... but I haven't seen a recent one
need examples! links!
And her last sentence there is exactly what we need! Your ticket keeps referring the support individuals back to this thread, which is good for context, but there is no solid example (link to a course) in this thread or in the ticket. In order to take the next steps in troubleshooting our support friends need to have access to examples.
The initial ticket included a screenshot of the missing graphic.
See also the post from Kimberly Smith @ Jun 21, 2018 10:04 PM
All, please post screenshots of missing graphics here as you find them...
On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 9:33 AM, Renee Carney <instructure@jiveon.com>
We saw those, Michael, but a screenshot doesn't help us troubleshoot this issue - so doing an all call for more screenshots will not help us solve this. We need a link to the course with the problem element, and we need to know who was having the problem and if possible what tech they were using. The ideal way to submit this ticket is to go to (or have the user go to) the problem element and use the help menu to 'submit a ticket' from that location. It gives our support team invaluable information.
Thanks, Renee. I will work to assist with these guidelines...
Just to help illustrate the scope of this issue, images will sporadically fail to load. It happens:
-across different browsers
-across different networks
-across different computers, Mac and PC
-across different instances of Canvas ( I use Canvas for my job at one institution and I am a grad student using Canvas at a different institution)
-across different Canvas logins (my coworkers/faculty I work with have also experienced this)
Clearly this is an issue inherent to Canvas. What was upsetting is when I contacted Canvas tech support I was told that I should expect to clear my caches as a regular part of Canvas as a regular part of use. Which is ridiculous. My school just transitioned from Blackboard, and trying to imagine how the initial sales pitch would have gone if the Instructure guy giving a demo had said “also, you’ll need to teach all your students and faculty how to manually clear their caches.”
I’m salty for two reasons: first, because in so many ways I think Canvas is a dramatic improvement over our old LMS, so this problem stands out even more. Second, I’m really surprised by the lack of an effective reaction from Canvas support.
In reply to "Renee Carney
@ Michael Freedman on Jun 22, 2018 12:59 PM
We saw those, Michael, but a screenshot doesn't help us troubleshoot this issue - so doing an all call for more screenshots will not help us solve this. We need a link to the course with the problem element, and we need to know who was having the problem and if possible what tech they were using. The ideal way to submit this ticket is to go to (or have the user go to) the problem element and use the help menu to 'submit a ticket' from that location. It gives our support team invaluable information."
Unfortunately, Renee, it won't help to send a link to the course each time because within moments the image is sometimes "magically" there again.
A possible solution to help Canvas Support see this intermittent problem is to call (on the phone) Canvas Support when we see the issue on our screen. Then connect via a web conference and share our screen so they can see the problem as it happens. What they will probably see (finally) is what we see.
The image is not there.
Then it's there.
We've been experiencing this problem where I work, too. To help stop the problem we are doing two things:
1. We stopped using images connected to Flickr. Instead, we upload our own or they are added during a course import. (I read the above post where it is now advisable to then go in to the new course, delete the images and re-upload them.)
2. If it's a "button" I've shown and offered our department team the option to use HTML instead of an image.
Regarding support, I'd be curious to know if anyone has pulled a report showing the number of incidents related to the problem.
How many times has this problem already been reported from various customers?
What is the root cause in each situation?
Has a pattern been discerned yet?
I'm sure the people working on the Support team are just as frustrated by this problem as we are. However, the elusiveness of the issue is the obstacle.
Canvas is already a great product. We are trying to help make Canvas the best product possible.
Hello everyone...
I'd like to re-summarize my post from last week. It seems like many of you are saying this is an issue on Instructure's end. While I cannot say for certain one way or the other if this is the case, I can tell you that working with our IT staff on-campus resolved broken image issues that cropped up for us recently. And, it may be worth investigation on your end to talk with your IT folks to see if there are similar issues that need to be addressed. The information I'm providing here is from one of our IT networking staff, so I won't be able to answer a lot of questions about this...I'm only providing the information. I provided him with a Canvas page URL where broken images were occurring.
Conversation on June 18, 2018
Once he whitelisted these, our images re-appeared in our courses and on the Canvas Dashboard.
Has this continued to work?
Chrome, Firefox and other browsers offer out of the box the ability to view and export underlying network traffic of a specific webpage. To understand this stuff and make sense of it you (or a helpful colleague) have to be quite an experienced techie (Instructure has lots of those )
Here is an example of what you could see:
See Network Monitor - Firefox Developer Tools | MDN
This way you can see all the traffic that make up the page.
It is also possible to export this to a HAR file to be analysed in different tools.
This illustrates how that would work:
To analyse a HAR file in full detail you can use this viewer: http://www.softwareishard.com/har/viewer/
Also take a look at HTTP response status codes - HTTP | MDN.
Note that 304 Not Modified is related to browser cache.
Note that this only works locally on the browser in which the page is loaded, as nobody can access this remotely due to browser security.
Be aware that this HAR file can contain sensitive data such as tokens and possibly privacy related data, so be careful who you send the HAR file (or screenshots of it) to.
In March 2017 I posted Did you experience missing content display or buttons not working, related to browser cache?
Back then it seemed I was the only one, apparently not. It is good to share these experiences! And possible solutions too, or at least properly investigatable!
We too have intermittently experienced this issue. I use chrome, and some days the pictures load, and others they don't. I'll post this to support when it occurs again!
Here's some guidance I wrote up for our school about this issue until better, more permanent fixes are found:
Circles of Innovation » Images Not Showing Up in Canvas? Here’s What You Can Do
Doug Holton 
Thank you Doug Holton for the tips. I had this happen to me yesterday when copying a page over to another course. I exported and tried to load the page. It looked great and then I hit Save and it was similar images to what Michael Freedman posted. Very frustrating. I did get them to work through trial and error and reloading.
I'm not sure how accurate this is (I haven't seen it posted on Canvas sites), but I was told that with heavy network traffic, Canvas will sometimes load content and dump images. We have seen this happen to us. Sometimes switching a browser works, but not always. Usually (as other people have reported) the images come back after a while.
This has been happening to us on and off for 2 years now. It disappears after a while but we can't fix it. It's not great because teachers new to the platform get really worried when it happens.
I would say that instructors are rightfully worried when this happens - especially those of us who use images/graphics in our quiz questions. Last year this created chaos for both me and my students during an exam.
This is a problem we have been experiencing as well - so good to know we are not the only ones struggling with this issue.
A partial fix for us was to make sure that all the images were loaded separately on each page from files, and not copied across from another page, but this has still not been a total fix.
One of the advantages of Canvas is that it offers the opportunity to provide an attractive learning environment for students - made much more difficult of course if images don't load!!
More information related to this topic.
We submitted ticket 02821817 1/29/18 for a teacher with missing images (multiple reports from the same person) and got a message that Canvas deployed a fix for the issue 2/21/18. Case was closed. We have recently received new reports from other teachers.
I ran into this in December 2017 and was told the issue was fixed. I'm wondering if something was done in the background again to break it.
----------message from 2017-----------------
Subject: Canvas Support: Images not appearing in Quizzes - Case #02668867
Hello:
Thank you for contacting Canvas Support. I understand that file links within the Final Quiz are showing as broken when students take the Quiz. In looking into this it appears that this may have been in relation to a previous bug that has since been fixed. I can see that when I try resetting the links by embedding the image from the course files at this time it displays the image correctly. Please follow the steps in THIS guide to get those image links reset and please let us know if users are still reporting trouble with this so we can take a closer look if needed.
Thank you!
Just adding in our voice to this - we have had this issue as well and it is a tremendous disadvantage when planning online and blended courses which rely on images which are informational rather than decorative. As a workaround we've offered a link to the graphic as well as embedding it, but this is not ideal. Something is definitely going on here.
We are experiencing the same issue. Clearing the cache does work, but this is not an acceptable solution. We are using lots of images for our online and blended courses, but it is disappointing to realize that students may end up seeing a broken image icon instead. All of our images are in the Files sections of their respective courses. The "disappearing" images are random. One staff member may not see an image, while everyone else does. This is happening across Chrome and Safari web browsers for us. I'm not sure about Firefox since that is not used as often. Our students also report that Chrome and Safari are the most used browsers so we need images to consistently work on these browsers. I'll try to call Support the next time this happens to me and report it and request they screenshare and view the problem.
I have also had this problem routinely. I contacted Canvas Chat, and they recommended clearing the cache. This fix only worked for a few days. I noticed this problem in Chrome; I was able to see the images in Firefox. I created a quiz that has images, and I am now concerned these quiz items may not appear for all students. I hope there is something Canvas can do to assist with a permanent fix. Maybe in the future Canvas may consider creating their own browser.
I raised this issue with Canvas and they recommended we white-list a list of Canvas services. We haven't implemented this yet, but are investigating this issue further before we make any changes. I use Chrome, and I have noticed that the images appear fine initially, but then if you leave the window open, navigate away from the images page, and open a different course, and then return to the same course over an hour later, this is when they tend to drop off.
The images seem to re-appear if you to a cache refresh using 'ctrl' + 'f5' in the browser.
I've been experiencing this problem for months. Sometime images are there, sometimes not, and then sometimes they come back again. Imagine if Facebook users were reporting missing images and they were told to clear their caches.
The support answers I and others of you have received amount to gaslighting by technical support. "Problem? What problem? ... oh, uh ... just clear your cache." So much easier than doing the hard work of tracking down an intermittent, but immensely critical issue.
BTW, this is another VERY good reason to insist on really meaningful, detailed alt text for all images.
I also have this problem - frustratingly on the same page some images display and others do not - hard to see this as a cache issue
Here's the screwy part about it - I think the fact that its related to cached files is part of why Instructure has had difficulty identifying it. I spent years doing tech support and teaching tech support, and part of the philosophy(?) of troubleshooting (which sounds very ostentatious but I can't think of a better word) is that if you can't reproduce the issue consistently on a second computer while you're working, its overwhelmingly likely a problem with a specific computer instead of a problem with the system both those computers connect to.
Additionally, issues related to images not loading on one computer when they can load on other computers are almost always related to a computer's ability to refresh its caches. So when we (or tech support from Instructure) take the very reasonable step of manually refreshing caches, it generally fixes the issue and reinforces the notion that this is computer specific.
I think there is some weird interaction on the server side that is either telling browsers they've refreshed when they haven't or ignoring requests to refresh.
At the top of this thread it says Assumed Answered, but is the question really answered?
I created a new question Update from Canvas: Media Processing Maintenance in which I refer back to this thread.
Instructure said that they deployed a fix on July 13. Is anyone still seeing this issue?
I am trying to get the case # so that others can report new instances of this problem via their admins.
Yes, this is still an issue.
Tech support has closed my case. They don't consolidate instances of an issue under a common case #, so I recommend that you open a new case via your admin. Take a screenshot and give them the details.
August 22, 2018 -- it just happened to me (again). It hasn't happened in a couple of months, though, so I haven't been searching the community until today. It's a banner that's been in place more than a year, then suddenly, gone. A few minutes later -- after refresh and cleared cache, I might add -- still gone. I left my office for a few minutes, came back, and there it was, visible again as if it had never disappeared.
Thanks for the update, please refer this to Instructure via your system
administrator.
On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 11:37 AM, clryan@nic.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>
I have a report of a case of this today, Sept 7, 2018.
Please make sure you send this through your system admin... M
On Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 8:34 AM skhagen@wisc.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>
Is there a solution to this or are we all just dealing with it?
IF ANYONE HAS FOUND A SOLUTION PLEASE SEND ME THE DETAILS
I'm working on designing custom pages for our Canvas courses, but I am getting push back on doing so because of the disappearing graphics. We would like to have a beautifully designed home page for our courses, but often just limit ourselves to a banner and some text because there's no point spending the time designing everything if it could cause confusion or navigation issues anyways. There's so much potential... I'd love to move forward and not limit myself because of a technical glitch.
Briana VanBuskirk good on you and you institution for having high standards.
The missing graphics issue seems to be so brief and occurs so irregularly that I just carry on as usual and put graphics in where I want them. It hasn't happened to me for a few weeks now and the last time it happened I blinked my eyes and it resolved. I hope it's the same for you also.
We've had this happen sporadically, but I think most people on this thread would be interested in knowing what causes it when it does happen because it shouldn't happen at all in theory. The "here today, gone tomorrow" nature of this glitch can be really frustrating to folks who don't understand the intricate details of how software works. It should "just work" and if it doesn't have an explanation behind it and a clear resolution path.
Hello Jeffrey Anderson .
My main concern with this issue is always for those of us who embed images in our quiz/exam questions. This can be a nightmare when the image is needed to answer the question, and the system decides to 'glitch' at some point during a timed online quiz/exam.
It just seems like there would be a solution to this. What do we tell students that experience this?....that it's normal?
I have no problem with accepting it since it doesn't happen too frequently, but it does look terrible when it does. Students should be able to see things at all times without this glitch. If I create custom navigation buttons that link to things within the course, they should be able to see them and be able to navigate without the icon disappearing. It has caused confusion for students in my experience. They've mentioned it in feedback surveys/questionnaires! Making the page visually appealing gives better user experience. When it's all glitch, it's a bad experience. Luckily it doesn't happen very frequently!
Also, as Kimberly noted below, the images cannot disappear in quizzes. That's a HUGE issue! I haven't had this happen to me personally, but it is obviously something that has happened.
Timely re: quizzes: I was just observing a class using a hybrid module we'd designed which leans heavily on short, image heavy quizzes for instant formative assessment so students can diagnose what concepts they do/don't understand and in both Chrome and Firefox on Mac and PC, they reported issues with an image essential to the question not displaying. This issue has real impact on the educational and classroom experience!
I have this problem all the time - doesn't matter how big or small the images are. I had some images linked to pages on my home page, but I've changed them over to buttons because I was sick of seeing broken links all the time. I have all my images stored in my course files. I think this is a server issue on Instructure's side. Are course files stored on Instructure servers? The reason I think this is that I often have problems uploading files. It will tell me to try again - so I do - and that works. But if there are temporary glitches in uploading, couldn't there just as easily be temporary glitches in downloading?
We are having the same struggles. There was some discussion of this issue at Canvascon in Sydney recently, and the official Canvas commentary appeared to be 'isn't it great to see how the community helps each other to solve these problems'. It is hard to see this as a self help issue, when it feels as if it is actually a Canvas problem which has not been addressed.
Please push this through your admins to open tickets. Then perhaps
aggregate the collective tickets here so we can see how many people are
dealing with this?
On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 10:33 PM s.carter@sydney.edu.au <
I've had this happen before as well. When I contacted the Canvas Help Desk, they suggested I clear my cache and that did the trick.