Discussion Shows No Longer Available but has no Until Dates

[SeanQuallen]

This is the first I've seen this, but I'm working with a faculty member who has a Discussion (a group discussion, if that makes a difference here) that shows No Longer Available. However, there are no Until Dates associated with any of the Assign To fields (instructor panicked after angry student emails and broke out several students into individual Assign Tos).

I worked with Canvas Support and they seemed completely stumped and want me to start changing dates and changing them back to original values--each of which would trigger a student notification so I'm hesitant to do that.

Has anyone run into this before? Any advice on what might be causing it? 

[crafte · Accepted solution]

Hi @SeanQuallen we have seen odd things happening related to assignment dates since the change to the method how dates are entered. It seems that some assignments remain connected to dates in a past course that was copied. In our case, instructors clicked the Manage due dates link to enter dates only to see a message that a due date cannot be after a course end date. The course end date was still several months away. Instructors were able to get past this issue by clicking the Assign To button next to the Edit button to enter dates.

Update: I was checking the known issues and came across an open issue concerning discussions that might be related to your issue: Discussion is closed for comments.

[chriscas]

Hi @SeanQuallen,

This may seem like a ridiculous question, but have you checked on the discussions main page to make sure the discussion item didn't somehow get moved to the "closed for comments" area?  I've seen teachers accidentally move things there or not quite understand what that area does, so it's the first thing that came to my mind.  I'd figure Canvas Support would have checked that, but it's something so simple that sometimes us techy-type people breeze right past and go down much more complex rabbit holes.  If the discussion is currently there, it can be dragged back under the Pinned Discussions or regular Discussions area, and that should restore the student's access.

Let us know if this turns out to be the issue!

-Chris

[SeanQuallen]

Thanks Chris--this was my first thought too, and I figured this would be an easy fix. However, it is not closed for comments. 

[crafte · Accepted solution]

Hi @SeanQuallen we have seen odd things happening related to assignment dates since the change to the method how dates are entered. It seems that some assignments remain connected to dates in a past course that was copied. In our case, instructors clicked the Manage due dates link to enter dates only to see a message that a due date cannot be after a course end date. The course end date was still several months away. Instructors were able to get past this issue by clicking the Assign To button next to the Edit button to enter dates.

Update: I was checking the known issues and came across an open issue concerning discussions that might be related to your issue: Discussion is closed for comments.

[ElizabethKiehne]

I am also having this issue and am stumped.

[NancyUber-Kello]

I tried adding a date through which the discussion is available, and it didn't change the discussion. It still says "no longer available."

[tristan_traviol]

I changed the due date on a discussion to let students make up missed work, and the disscusion says "no longer available" while it sits in the "Discussions" group not the "Closed for Comments group." What is really odd is the discussion shows a response after the original due date but the response is not visible. 

[tristan_traviol]

Upate. I decided to try resetting the "available from date" to a five minutes in the future to see if that would help and it did not. The Canvas discussion showed my change of due dates as the time of the last post in the discussion. 

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

If anyone is still experiencing this issue, I'd highly recommend reaching back out to Canvas Support about it.  I know there have been several fixes for discussions, and there may be some more coming with next week's deploy (fingers crossed as one issue I know about is scheduled to be fixed next week).  Canvas support can at least log the issues and prioritize them based on how many similar reports they get.

-Chris

[Lisa_Dickson]

@SeanQuallen I found a workaround. Go to Edit on the discussion, make a mental note of the point value, deselect Graded, and then Save. Go back to Edit, mark the discussion as Graded and enter the point value, then Save.