Copying Quiz to Course doesn't Transfer Images Anymore

[MICHAELTOLLISON]

We create Canvas Quizzes in our Team Sandbox (Team created Course to build our Curriculum and then copy to each teacher's Course).  We Copy those Quizzes into our Official Canvas Course for the students.  The images do not transfer.  We had no issues with this last year.  This is a new issue this year.  We are creating and editing our Canvas Quizzes the exact same way as we did before and it worked then.  It is causing us to Create the Quiz, Copy it into our Canvas Courses, and Edit each question that has a picture and add the picture to the Quiz in our Canvas Course. 

[mzimmerman]

Hi @MICHAELTOLLISON 

Are these "classic" quizzes or New Quizzes?

As a first step in troubleshooting, after you have copied the quizzes to the new course, I would look at the questions with missing images in HTML mode, to see if the image links are pointing back to the original sandbox course.  (You can also do this with the Link Validation tool under Settings).  If the image link is pointing still pointing back to the original sandbox course, that means that there is a problem with the way that the image was embedded in the question.  Be sure that you are using the "insert image" from the RCE toolbar.

[SARAHERZOG]

After a lot of troubleshooting we have found that if you create an item bank with all the questions going into the quiz and then create the quiz of the bank, the images transfer without a problem.  Regardless of this solution, it would be ideal to have the new quizzes fixed so teachers who don't want to create banks or don't know how can still use the New Quizzes tool.

[cgodwin]

I tried this today.  No luck.  Images will not transfer over

[SARAHERZOG]

I have used the "insert image feature" in the RCE and still the images don't transfer

[mzimmerman]

When you look at the HTML after the test has been copied, is the image link pointing to a file that doesn't exist in the current course, or is it doing something else?

[SARAHERZOG]

Unfortunately, when this happens is when the teacher needs to give the test to their students and looking at the HTML is not an option. Not to mention, that the vast majority of teachers aren't familiar with the HTML code. We need to make sure we restore the quiz so it can be used within minutes.  I am assuming that if your are asking me if the HTML shows the picture pointing at a different course, is because you guys already know in some instances that happens.  Isn't it possible to replicate the RCE from an assignment or a page into the new quizzes so this issue don't occur again? 

[mzimmerman]

Hi @SARAHERZOG 

Sorry, I assumed that you were an administrator or course admin investigating the issue, and had access to look at the courses/quizzes in question to troubleshoot.

Is this a "New Quiz", or a "classic" quiz?

[audra_agnelly]

@mzimmerman I sat in a long meeting today with a teacher and have done extensive testing at this point. When the quiz (New) is imported, the images are not brought with it. The updated source url points to the new course, but the file id is the id in the original course. The quiz images are not coming over to files in the new course unless you intentionally import the quiz and corresponding images at the same time. This only works from the course import screen, not from share to/copy to where you only select the individual resource. If you import a quiz from course import and forget the images you can't redo that import. 

[cgodwin]

How do you "intentionally import the quiz and corresponding images at the same time."?

This was not an issue until this year

[pecchiog]

I would like to echo all these sentiments. To respond to the one suggestion, whether it was classic or new did not make any difference. Also, using the Commons or send to / copy to also didn't seem to make a difference. I'm wondering, if you export the course completely, then import "selected content" -- perhaps this would work because the image files would accompany it? But is that realistic every time just to share a quiz. 

Does anyone know is this only when one instructor sends to a different instructor, or does it work when instructor sends to another one of their courses? This would rule out the permissions idea that they aren't being shared correctly. 

[MarkWeaver]

My old quizzes still work fine and transfer to and fro without issue. Newly created quizzes fail to bring the image over with them. Feels like they broke something with the rich editor when adding a feature. 

[lph]

Yes. It happened with new code for the rich text editor back in September. We still have open Case #10143254.

If you look at the HTML, then you will see that a course ID is now in the source URL. I've had tickets in for weeks and pointed this out to several different people at L2 and above support.

Prior to the change:

img src="https://canvas.instructure.com/assessment_questions/84863080/files/65940089/download?verifier=O6rjp5..."

After the change:

img src="/courses/45454/files/5285568/preview?verifier=Ut37m2I8CLjxIlFijevcIR1WmzKryvgLPtbDkXVF"

Bulk import

Bulk import of questions can be used as a work around (for now). To get around the course ID being in the source URL, I've been doing the following: "I’ve solved things by changing the import into classic, create a quiz in classic (don’t use the quiz created by the import), export this created quiz as qti. Import the qti in a newly created item bank. Images link properly. "

Unfortunately, if you create the quiz question within Canvas then you will have the course ID.

A possible workaround is to not use Canvas to store the images. Of course, we have teachers with thousands of images in their banks. 

[audra_agnelly]

Suppposedly a fix was going to Beta for testing a couple weeks ago but when I test some quizzes there I see the same behavior. Copying a quiz from one course to another is pretty basic practice, particularly among colleagues collaborating. For the importer to have re-import lost images separately and then edit all the quiz questions that need those images takes up an incredible amount of time and negates the time that should be saved by copying a quiz from another course. The fact that all images inserted via the RCE go into Uploaded Media with no option to organize into a folder on import adds an additional challenge for staff to sift through the images in that folder when they need to re-import them following this quiz import failure. It's going on 2 months that this has been an issue for my teachers and everyone is very frustrated by how long it is taking to resolve this.

[lph]

We do not have access to beta. We reported the issue five years ago that logging into the beta rolled us to the production version. It's never been fixed. 

A teacher let me know yesterday that her students were complaining images from questions she added over a year ago are not loading images for students. I'm going to look into it today. 

[cgodwin]

Yep!  I've been using Canvas without issue for years and this is the only time kids are not able to see images.

[cgodwin]

Exactly!  The broke it and need to accept that they broke it and fix it without us having to go through all this! 

[Laura_G]

I am also having this problem. I make a New Quiz in one course then add the questions to a question bank so I and other teachers can use the same questions in other courses. When I attempt to add questions having images to a question bank I get the message "You are attempting to add content containing course links which may not work when used in other courses." Then if we use the question, from the question bank students outside the Canvas course of origin cannot see the images when taking the quiz. 

This was not an issue last year. Now every teacher sharing a question bank needs to find and add pictures to any questions requiring them. Clearly this is a system-wide problem. 

[jbielecki]

55 weeks later, I'm still having this exact same problem! 

[audra_agnelly]

@MPioRoda is there any update on this issue with New Quizzes images not copying correctly when send to/copy to is used? The work around is to use the course import tool to import the quiz and select the corresponding images but this is not an intuitive workflow to teachers. The OP posted this nearly 3 months ago and I've had ticket into Support and On Hold since early October (10190385). It's really disruptive to my teachers to have to re-add the lost images to quiz questions they've already created.

[cgodwin]

I have wasted every spare second during/between classes struggling to get this to work by the next group of kids.  Its been an awful week...No response from Canvas Help requests

[CATHARINEODER]

I was creating item banks for my questions with pictures and that WAS working when I copied to a new course... it did not work with the one I created last week. Is there another work around without going into every question and re-uploading the pics?

[lph]

I'm sorry this didn't work for you. I did a copy of a very large site, with thousands of new quiz questions and images into a new shell. The item banks were properly shared (permission of view) to the new shell and images showed properly.

The only work around I know is to not upload images to Canvas but use a Cloud service to hold the images. This way the link is never broken. However, before going to that extreme, check the code and make sure the course number is being replaced. 

[cgodwin]

I've been trying that today and I found even if I reload a pic for a course, it now wont' work with the previous course.  I ended up having 4 images loaded on each question so kids in each class could see at least one image.  So frustrating!

[cgodwin]

Its been a nightmare this week.  I created a lot of new content expecting everything to work as usual and the images will not share. 

I have put in multiple help requests and have gotten no response except "we are looking into it".  I think it has to do with the inability to share files anymore.  It keeps saying "This may not work with other course lings, want to save anyway?" with no other option.

I did all of the below:

-Made the quiz like normal in a sandbox and saved to the item banks...nope

-uploaded the pics individually into each course and tried to pull from the item bank...nope

-tried to edit the pics from the item bank but it if I edit it in period 2, none of the rest can see it.  If I now edit it in 3, now 2 can't see it.  

Looks like my next try will be to make the quiz in the Sandbox, upload to commons, then pull from commons into each course.  What a waste of time!

We were told that Canvas software writers made this mess with the last update and still they refuse to correct it, leaving us constantly scrambling.

There must be a way to get this escalated to supervisors higher up.

[SARAHERZOG]

The last workaround that I tried was to create the quiz following everything you described, then duplicate the quiz and copy over the copy.  That worked with one quiz but it didn't work with the other one.

Another thing I did that I am not sure if it helps is to make sure that in your files, the upload files folder is published.  

[lph]

Sorry that this is so frustrating. This might help.

All questions are created in item banks, which have been manually shared with the course. If there are five courses using the item banks, then all five courses have the item banks shared to it.

Do NOT add any image questions in the item banks until the sharing to the course has been completed. 

Once shared, then create the questions with images. 

Create the quiz by pulling questions from the item banks.

Do NOT duplicate quizzes; create all quizzes fresh by pulling questions from the item banks which are properly shared with the course. 

Important: My routine has dramatically changed since this became a problem. My five courses are set as blueprint courses. Students are in associated shells, in which the content from the blueprint is synchronized. Course IDs are properly changed and there have been no issues with images. All item banks are shared to the proper blueprint courses. It's been smooth sailing for months. 

[redhammerdog · Accepted solution]

Same issue here.  What seems to work is saving the images under User Files not Course Files.  Click on Files, at the bottom right click on ALL MY FILES.  Then upload the image there.  Then in the quiz, Insert - Image - User Images and click on the file.  This at least allows my students to see the file.  This has been so frustrating as I can't easily tell until my students are taking the quiz/test.  One work-around is just opening the questions one-by-one in my bank or on the test, and then closing them to see if I get the warning message "you are attempting to save content which may not work when used in other course".  When I pull from my User Files, I don't get the warning. Hopefully they will work next year or with other teachers who share the Banks with me. 

[jbielecki]

I have 70+ images in 30+ quizzes that were created years ago as Classic Quizzes with Question Banks, and I spent all this past summer converting them to New Quizzes and Item Banks. I imported my fall course exports into my upcoming spring classes and got error messages about images. First, why am I getting error messages if I can see images in Student View?

Second, I've read in several posts that storing Item Bank images in User Files instead of Course Files may solve this problem, but I'm confused. This page says, "No other users can view files in your user files." Will going into an Item Bank to replace an image with an image in User Files fix the problem if the course/quiz has already been imported/copied? Since I've already set up my spring courses, does this mean I'll have to go into each quiz in each course and manually replace every image with a Course Image? I can't start over because (a) only one person in our IT department can wipe a course, and she's on break until Jan. 4, and (b) even if she could wipe the course right now for me to start over, it takes me two or three days to update each course each semester. Classes start Jan. 6. What do I do?