Module remains locked after completing pre-requisites

[GLoya]

Hi all,

We've encountered a recurring issue in Canvas where students are blocked from progressing in a module due to unmet prerequisites—usually a required quiz score—even though the Gradebook shows they've met the requirement.

When a student attempt to access a locked page the Canvas page states "The following requirements need to be completed before this page will be unlocked:" but does not list any requirements below. 

In one case, the Gradebook showed the correct quiz score, but the access report indicated the student never accessed the quiz. It seems Canvas didn’t register the quiz attempt, which may be why the system blocked access? The only workaround has been manually excusing the assignment for each student.

This has happened multiple times in the course with new students or when students return to the course. Has anyone else seen this? Any known fixes or better workarounds? 

If it matters, this course has 1.2k students in it, I understand that may cause issues in general, but would love to know more of the why/how this happens. 

Thanks!

[Jeff_F · Accepted solution]

@GLoya - while I cannot say why it happens; I can share that the solution Canvas Support shared with me when I reported the issue was to go to the module in question and select the edit button then save. Nothing needs to be edited. Doing so 'releases' a behind the scenes lock that prevents student progress.

[GLoya]

Thanks for your reply! I haven't seen this solution before, I will try this out and "re-save" the module settings next time.

[Gabriel33]

Chriscas' reply in this thread from a few weeks ago suggests that unlocking may sometimes not be immediate, as it happens through some back-end process. I haven't experienced that, but my classes have much fewer than 1,200 students.

It could be that editing/saving the requirements as suggested by Jeff_F above would force this process to run.

[GLoya]

I did see that discussion, thank you for linking! In this scenario, the student was blocked for 2 weeks before they reached out and wasn't able to access after waiting. 

[venitk]

this also happened to an instructor I was working with. The student was in Vietnam, so we were wondering if there was some sort of issue with Internet settings in that country, so I didn't file a ticket. But it seems like this is happening to other people. have you filed a ticket yet?

[GLoya]

Oh thats interesting, thanks! As far as I know these students have all been in the same country the course was in. It's another thing I can look into though. I haven't submitted a ticket since I have not found a way to reproduce the issue on demand, seems to happen randomly. 

[dbrace]

I recently experienced this at my institution too (the problem only prevented one student from proceeding) and (after contacting Canvas Support directly) we used the same solution as @Jeff_F.

I am going to mark @Jeff_F's reply as the solution to this question.

-Doug