Instructor unable to reply to message from a student in an old class

[Pbrydon]

This is a new problem we have been experiencing in the last 6 months.  Students will send messages to instructors from classes which already concluded.  Usually, asking about their grades.  When an instructor goes to reply, they find they are unable because the reply buttons are greyed out.  

We have been able to get around this problem by removing or pushing out the course end date.  However, as of today, that is not working.  

Is there something I am missing?  Can this be fixed?  We have instructors consistently reaching out to us to fix this issue.

[JeffW · Accepted solution]

Hello @Pbrydon 

I am sorry to see that your question went for so long without a reply! Hopefully I can provide some insight.

Has anything changed in the way that your school handles enrollments in Canvas? Users needs to share an active enrollment in a course to be able to communicate via the inbox. It's possible that the enrollments were concluded manually instead of via the course dates. Did you confirm that the users were all still enrolled in the course indicated on the inbox message? I would start by verifying the the course dates are open, the section dates are open (if utilized) and then make sure the users trying to communicate with each other are both listed as active in the course. 

If none of that helps it would be worth reaching out to Canvas Support with specific examples, links to the users attempting to communicate and the course that they share.

[ptoche]

I faced a similar problem for the following reason and with the following fix:

The course was marked as ending on 27 December, while grades were not due until the beginning of January, with students still emailing me via Canvas after 27 December. I went to the settings and extended the course end dates. That fixed the problem. Not sure how that would affect a course that ended several months ago...