Gradebook screen is blank -- impacting some Chrome users

[audra_agnelly]

I've had some reports where teachers are not able to see their gradebooks in the Chrome browser. I am not able to replicate the issue, so we believe this is being caused by some setting in their browser. Has anyone else encountered this recently and found a solution? Teachers are on current versions (Chrome 94 or 95) and have tried the typical troubleshooting steps with no luck:

• The issue does not happen in Firefox
• I tried disabling my extensions one by one, and restarting Chrome
• I tried clearing my cache
• I tried Restore settings to original defaults

[dalston1]

We have had this problem, too. If the teacher right clicked on the Grades link at the top of the page and pressed open in new tab, the grades showed up. I don't know why this is happening, though.

[BrandiGranett]

I have also had two faculty members report this issue. Firefox does seem to fix it.

[dtod]

We are seeing this more and more. Blank pages, particularly the gradebook, when using Chrome. Instructure support suggests uninstalling Chrome, rebooting and reinstalling Chrome!

See also https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/Page-content-won-t-display-pages-are-blank/...

It cannot be replicated using Act As... - I suspect perhaps something to do with React.

[dtod]

One of the faculty affected was an IT instructor and was extremely thorough with their troubleshooting.

[audra_agnelly]

Since my original post, impact has broadened. In additional to the gradebook, the Shared Content Screen is blank, we are running into some issues with the Inbox loading messages and the "Sending" flag getting stuck at the the top of the screen and never loading the sent message confirmation banner. I have one user who gets an error when she tries to open Commons and sees the blank Shared Content screen; it appears to be related to the other Chrome issues since I cannot replicate the Commons issue when I act as her. All users have been on Chrome version 96.0.4664.55 or 96.0.4664.45, but not all users on these versions (myself included) are experiencing the issue. Normal resolution issues: clearing the cache, resetting Chrome, turning off extensions are not working Our help desk is having users create a new Chrome profile, which resolves the issue for most users but not all; we're not sure what will happen with the next browser update ad if this is just a temporary fix. Here are the directions we are sending staff. 

1. Open Chrome.
2. In the upper, right-hand corner, click the User Profile icon.

3. At the bottom of the pop-up, select Add.

4. In the new window, click Add.

        

5. Select Continue without an Account.           

6. Enter a Name (can be anything) for your new profile and click Done in the lower, right-hand corner.
7. 

[MelissaCarper]

This fix did not work for me.  I tried making a new account and opening Canvas on that new account, but it changed nothing.  I am desperately needing to use my gradebook, though, and hope that somehow this issue can be resolved quickly.   My gradebook works on my Chromebook, but not on my laptop.  No one else in my building is having this issue, though, which seems odd. 

[mduran51]

We're running in to the same problem as well -- this seems to be affecting our staff and students that are using Chrome version 96. So far we've gotten 6 staff and 1 student reporting this problem, all on version 96.0.4664.55 of Chrome. Just like other folks have mentioned, it's intermittent and not just one page -- I've seen it on the quizzes page, gradebook, our zoom lti, and a number of other pages. We had one staff that was able to test out on a personal device Chrome version 95 and the problem immediately went away. This is what we've tried so far in terms of troubleshooting -- all of our staff use their Chrome profiles to login to Canvas so unfortunately doing things in incognito mode won't work:

• Cleared cache in chrome
• Restarted computer and chrome completely
• Turned off ublock
• Disabled all extensions
• Switched networks
• Factory reset chrome
• Uninstalled chrome completely and reinstalled it
• Changed DNS within the browser to Chrome’s 8.8 servers
• Switched to Safari (worked perfectly fine)

We opened up a support ticket with Canvas on 12/2 (Ticket number 08301243) but haven't heard anything back just yet. Hopefully this helps someone pinpoint the problem!

[KristinL]

Hi Everyone - Today, there have been issues with the AWS servers, and this is impacting many people in North America. You can watch the Instructure Status page for updates. After this is resolved, I would be interested in hearing if these issues clear up too!

[jkassimer]

My district is still experiencing the issue.

[mduran51]

@KristinL -- the first report of this problem for me started on 12/1 and there's a couple other posts that also mention this problem from previous months:

- Posted on 11/16: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/Google-Chrome-unable-to-access-gradebook-in...

- Posted on 10/25: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/Page-content-won-t-display-pages-are-blank/...

[dtod]

My CSM relayed that engineering is pointing the finger at a Chrome bug, but since I've not heard about it in other contexts, I'm not entirely convinced.

[mduran51]

Did they happen to mention what the bug was? I checked Chrome's bug list (link: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=Type%3DBug-Regression%20target%3D96&can=2) for any regression bugs but didn't find any that mention this problem. I found one that was tangentially related but that's after interacting with an iframe, not just not loading the iframe 

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1269675&q=Type%3DBug-Regression%20target%3D96&...

I was able to get a network request log from one of the staffs computers when it isn't loading the page and noticed this error when it tries to load a page that fails:

Incomplete response received
The size of the body received is smaller than the one declared on the response headers

This is indicating that the server is not sending the whole body as it is declared, leading me to believe that this is something with Canvas' side, not a bug in Chrome. Or, at the very least, a problem with the way that Chrome interacts with Canvas?

[dtod]

Oh, I'm very skeptical that it's a Chrome bug, and pretty certain that Canvas is triggering the issue.

[audra_agnelly]

@mduran51 do you have an open ticket with Canvas Support? They don't necessarily check these forums, your request log would be helpful information to provide, especially given how sporadic and difficult to replicate this issue has been.

[KristinL]

@audra_agnelly -- I agree with you. At this point, a Support Ticket is the best action to take. Work with your local admin to escalate the ticket. The tickets include such important information too. The more people that report the issue, the more insight they can gain.

How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor? 

[mduran51]

@audra_agnelly Yup! Opened it up on 12/1, waiting on word back for anything past the initial "we've received your ticket". Mostly on here trying to find just some common thread amongst this issue but no such luck just yet!

[audra_agnelly]

@mduran51 I would reply to the original confirmation email with the information you've shared here. If you haven't received any response I'd also reach out to your CSM.

[mduran51]

@audra_agnelly @KristinL Will do! We reached out this morning to our CSM for any updates, I'm putting this all together for them when they get back. Thank you both!

[vancej]

I hope this posts because I encountered an error message. In one class shell, I can enter the  Grades area, and the  page is blank. Yet, if I click on the  "hamburger" button to  open the course navigation, and click on Grades, then the Grades area populate. Yet, this trick did not work in another  shell. There is something weird going. This is occurring  in Chrome whereas Firefox is not presenting this behavior. 

[SusanRose]

I have the same problem in my courses, but quiz list won't autopopulate, sometimes files and sometimes grades.

[mduran51]

@dtod Support just got back to me that the engineering team is aware of the problem and are trying to reproduce it but don't have a timeline. Hopefully all this info will help get them to the right solution!

[audra_agnelly]

We are getting reports for this issue coming up in New Quizzes this morning...

ETA- we are recommending to teachers the above suggestion to open in a new tab. I am receiving reports that while the gradebook loads this way, the screen is going blank as teachers input grades. 

[SusanRose]

Opening in a new tab seems to work, but not always. 

[Choachy]

We've been seeing the blank gradebook issue for the past week as well, but over the last hour it has gotten much worse as users are now reporting that they cannot see the Quizzes page, or import content page. I have opened a case with Canvas Support as well.

[erinhmcmillan]

Please follow this issue in Various pages fail to load completely in Ca... - Instructure Community

Thanks,

Erin

[mduran51]

Protip -- if you're using Safari as your workaround, make sure to allow third party cookies, otherwise many LTIs won't load properly; I and a few teacher ran into this and it's not super apparent where you need to make that adjustment. I think that Firefox by default will allow third party cookies by default so there shouldn't need to be any changes made there. For Safari though:

• Click on the Safari menu if you're on a mac and choose Preferences
• Click on the Privacy tab and uncheck "Block all cookies"

[audra_agnelly]

Thanks @erinhmcmillan . Some of the information on that issue page is not consistent (or complete) with regards to what we are seeing. Specifically,

• Happens in Chrome 96 in Windows 10/11. -- we are seeing this on Macs, Windows, and Chromebooks

• Clearing cache fixes it, but only temporarily and for most, but not for every user. When they come back to the page later it is broken again.--clearing the cache has had no impact for our users. Making a new Chrome profile has resolved the issue for most users BUT today we are having those same users report the issue is occurring again. After checking their logs, I found they were accessing Canvas from an updated version of Chrome 96 (ex. version 96.0.4664.55 to version 96.0.4664.93) It appears the Chrome update restores whatever had been corrected by renaming the profile.

[Justin_Reynolds]

Our faculty are also reporting this issue.  Clearing cache and rebooting has no impact on the issue.

[dtod]

Our CSM reports that this was fixed over the weekend, but I'm still hearing mixed reports from the front lines.

[mduran51]

Yeah, getting mixed reports as well -- some folks reporting that it's working consistently, others not as much. 

[mduran51]

We're finally getting reports that things have started returning to normal -- anyone else still seeing this issue? Looks like the Canvas post on is still lists the issue as open so curious if this is just a lull in between reports.

[audra_agnelly]

We received an update from our CSM that the majority of issues have been resolved, but some pages may still be impacted, particularly with blueprints. 

I've followed up with several of the teachers who reported the problem and they have all repliedthat Canvas is behaving normally for them. I also have not received any new reports about the page loading issue this week.

[dtod]

We were still hearing about issues on Monday, but not since then.

[mduran51]

Support closed out our ticket on this and it looks like the help article has been updated to no longer show as open. No further reports on this, so glad this was worked on pretty quickly!