How to cancel a course import?

[Ron_Bowman]

I wanted to show a colleague how to import content into a course, and I was showing him the steps provided by  @James_Kocher_UF ​ in the post https://community.canvaslms.com/message/3429#3429.  Once I got to the step to import the information I no longer needed to proceed with the demonstration.  That is when I could not figure out how to cancel the import.   There is a cancel button on the page listing the content that you want to select to import; however there is no cancel for the overall action of importing. Anybody have any ideas?

TIA,

Ron

[kona · Accepted solution]

 @Ron_Bowman ​, as far as I'm aware there is no way to cancel a course import once it gets started. Yet, if you want to clear it out once it's done you can "Reset Course Content" - How do I reset course content? Side note - this will delete EVERYTHING out of the course, not just the recent import.

[Ron_Bowman]

 @kona ​

I figured that was the case.  It does not matter in this case.  I was importing into my playground course.  I will just leave it as a pending import and not worry about it.  I knew about the reset course, and I really have no intention of ever using that feature until I do something stupid.

[kmeeusen]

Ronald:

"Reset Course Content" is my best friend as I use my sandbox for all sorts of faculty and student training, and clean out all the gobbledygook at least once a week. That being said, we actually turned this feature off for faculty after cleaning up a few  "stupid" mistakes.

[kona]

 @kmeeusen ​, I use it all the time as well, but we also have it turned off for faculty.

[ccarriga]

5 years later is this really the best Canvas can do??  This is considered a "solution"?!?  I have a course import that is waiting for me to select content, but when I set it up I accidentally chose the wrong course.  So the content I need to import isn't in there.  I need to cancel the import.  This shouldn't be hard. 

[marafinom]

I know this post is from years ago, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning that I was able to cancel a course import using the "Reset Course Content" feature.

[Chris_Hofer]

@marafinom ...

Resetting a course is not the same as cancelling a course import.  To my knowledge, there still is not a way to cancel a course import.  Once you initiate a course import, it will run until it is done.  Resetting a course essentially wipes out a course completely so that you can start fresh again.

[hklassen]

I did two successful imports and the third attempt failed. The fourth attempt is stuck on pre-processing for 24 hours. I restarted Canvas and tried a fifth time. It now has the status queued, but nothing seems to be happening as the pre-processing 4th attempt which states that the file is missing isn't working. The queue seems to be blocked and I don't know how to eliminate that import. I am willing to Reset Course Content, but want to be sure that the whole import queue will be cleared out as well as the already imported content.

[jenna_scheub]

I'm having that same issue

[scottdennis]

Hi Jenna,

It looks like the zip file that failed to import twice was blocked as containing unsupported content.  Where did the zip file come from?

[jenna_scheub]

I'm guessing you took a look at my account? I created those files (somehow) using Canvas options. I believe I used the "export content' in the modules page for one of them. I was able to successfully import content from my development shell into my actual course when I went to settings and prepared a course export again.

When I commented above, I was trying to help a colleague who was stuck with the pre-processing message. To solve her problem we did the following:

1. exported her current course (making sure the downloaded file was a .imscc
2. reset the course
3. imported the course export

[scottdennis]

Well, I'm glad to hear you were successful in helping your colleague - that is pretty smart exporting only what you want keep and then re-importing into reset course shell.

[jenna_scheub]

Thanks for your help!

[jenna_scheub]

Update: Be careful about doing that if there are grades already in the gradebook!

I think that she ended up needing some admin help because the grades did not get exported / imported with the above actions

[avonmalu]

I imported Course A into Course B. I noticed that when I changed things in Course B, it was also changing them in Course A. I don't want this to happen and would like to sever the connection between them. 

If I reset Course B, will it also reset Course A? I don't want this to happen either.