Communication channel to learn about breakages as they happen, or likely breaking changes?

[PaulNagami]

I just had a student inform me that they could not reply to other students in a discussion that I set up in advance over the summer. I saw that threaded replies had been turned off without my knowledge, turned them back on, and announced the bug to the class with my apologies.

Last month, I also ran into a major breakage of pre-made Announcements and had to remake all of my announcements this term. I found out only when they announcements were not being sent, and the only way I got more info was by visiting these forums after the breakage happened.

Is there a communication channel by which instructors can be informed of these breakages when they happen, or warned of changes that are likely to render their existing course materials inaccessible? Do we need to keep relying on side channels?

[Chris_Hofer]

@PaulNagami ...

Although I can understand why these apparent and unexpected changes to your course can be frustrating, I'm not sure I would consider them bugs.  I don't know if there is a site that would tell you in "real time" if and when something specific wasn't working.  I do know there is an overall Canvas Status page...which you can find at https://status.instructure.com.  Also, there is a Known Issues - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com) page (which you can find under the "Explore" menu at the top of any page here in the Community...but I don't think it's "real time" like you are maybe hoping.  If you do experience any issues like the ones you have in your course, I would encourage you to reach out to the Canvas Help Desk staff so that they can get the problem logged.  They might be able to help you resolve the issue, too.

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Good luck!

[PaulNagami]

"Although I can understand why these apparent and unexpected changes to your course can be frustrating, I'm not sure I would consider them bugs."

Here is the issue report for the Announcements issue:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Known-Issues/Editing-an-announcement-but-not-the-quot-available-f...

If I preschedule a huge number of announcements in advance, Canvas shows that they are scheduled to be sent, and then they are not sent, that is not just an "apparent and unexpected change." That is a bug. It is a bug reported by many users. It is a bug that has wasted the time of many human beings.

It is infuriating to:

1. Do the work of pre-scheduling announcements in advance over the summer in anticipation of my newborn arriving this fall.

2. Find, in real time, that announcements are broken and buggy. Not "an apparent an unexpected change."

3. Waste weekend time remaking all my announcements because, as the bug page notes, "No workaround exists at this time."

(I suppose, by a sufficiently loose definition of "not a bug," silently converting discussions to not allow replies by default is "not a bug." It's unbelievably hostile behavior, but it's not a bug.)

It is bad enough to lose the time spent caring for my newborn daughter to remaking announcements across 4 sections. It is bad enough to be told there is no defense, no way to prevent this, no way to even find out short of digging up answers after I lose some other course component.

But to be told that it's an "apparent change" that my announcements failed to send, even if there is a tracked issue, even if many other instructors reported this obvious bug, is absolutely enraging.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@PaulNagami ...

Thank you for your response, and I apologize that my response wasn't satisfactory.  I'm a fellow Canvas user like yourself, and I don't work for Instructure.  (I work for a college in Michigan.)  I can understand when things don't work the way that you and I expect them to.  I've had some of my own experiences with this, so I hear what you are saying.

Thanks also for providing that link to the known issue for the announcements.  I had not seen that one.  In looking at the documented issue, there is a note in the light blue box:

"This case was unable to be reproduced. If behavior persists, please submit a new support case."

Have you had the opportunity to submit a ticket to Canvas Support (Canvas Help Desk) so that you can get this issue logged?  I know I mentioned this in my first response, but I wasn't sure if this was something you had already tried or not.  That is what I recommend.  That way, you'd be notified if/when any new resolutions are found.

Again, apologies if my earlier response wasn't what you were hoping for.  Take care...

[PaulNagami]

Sorry for the sharp response! I’ve also helped people and posted solutions, and I think part of my frustration is the sense that I’m acting as free tech support for Instructure sometimes. I appreciate your attempt to help out.

I think they’re struggling to reproduce it because it applied to announcements created in a particular window of time this summer, based on what others have reported. 

I think that the thing to do is just make the reports for now, and “develop defensively” on the future - back up everything, check that scheduled events go through, etc!