New Media Player

[QC99_tsilvius]

I'm finding that the new media player has removed the play/pause button from the controls in quizzes. This is a shot from one of my quiz directions pages.

Also, to support my students in quizzes I embedded audio in each question, correct answer, and distractor answer question. Those students who needed this support could access it more discreetly without drawing the attention of their peers having the text read aloud to them by a person. 

The play/pause button is also missing from embedded audio in Discussions.

However, the embedded media player in a page seems to be working just fine. (see below)

These systems seem to be broken with the new media player, but maybe I'm missing something. Is anyone else having this same experience and knows of a way to correct the problem?

Thanks,

Todd

[melodyc_lam]

@QC99_tsilvius I'm assuming from the images there that this is a Classic Quiz, correct? Was the quiz made before the switch over to the new media player?

In testing on my instance, I created a new classic quiz and embedded video and an audio file directly from my hard drive into the quiz and the buttons all appear to be there.

[QC99_tsilvius]

yes, @melodyc_lam  it is from a class quiz created before the new media player release. I'm seeing the same no-play-button experience on discussions, too. This means that Announcements do not have a play button either. Just checked.

Maybe it's not a big deal, but it really seems that having a playback button would be helpful. 

I really wish that this did not break all of the embedded audio in Classic Quizzes though. 

[melodyc_lam]

Yeah that is really weird! I would report it to Canvas support so they can check on their end and see if they have any solutions to this.

I suspect that re-embedding all the audio/videos will fix the issue, but that's not a great solution when we're in the middle of a school year.

[QC99_tsilvius]

Thanks @melodyc_lam. What do you think is the best way to go about sharing this with support?

[melodyc_lam]

I'd just put in a ticket with them or use the live chat (if available) and send them the screenshots and the course that the problem is in.

Just curious, did you clear your cache and cookies and re-log into Canvas to see if the issue is still there?

[dbrace]

Hi @QC99_tsilvius.,

I have included @AkosFarago. Akos is the Product Manager of Canvas Studio and their team worked on the upgraded media player.

Hello Akos,

Are you able to help?

-Doug

[QC99_tsilvius]

Thanks Doug. I appreciate the extra eyes. 

I just tried to embed a podcast recording from my Course Files into a Page. 

Same result. No playback button. 

I then though maybe I need to upload the mp3 file from my computer and embed it like @melodyc_lam mentioned they tried with success, but it still created the same result -- a media player without a play button. See below screenshot.

When these no-play-button interfaces appear, I can get the audio to play. In fact, until the play button reappears, I included a tip of clicking the audio player once then click using the spacebar to begin playback, but that's not very intuitive especially when videos are working just fine.

@AkosFarago I am wondering if this is issue is related to embedding an mp3/audio file only? My video files in other parts of my course are looking great. Very nice play buttons there. 

However, for my quizzes where I've voice-recorded the questions (since immersive reader doesn't extend into the classic quiz tool) and in my colleagues courses (for example, one of our mandarin teachers' courses where students listen to a sentence and transcribe what they hear), the new media player is causing some challenges.

Do you think it might be something to do with audio files?

Thanks for the extra eyes on this. 

PS -- although I haven't checked this out yet, @AkosFarago I've heard from other colleagues that YouTube ads now appear in CanvasStudio videos. Sorry -- don't want to mix the topics here. 

[dbrace]

You are welcome, @QC99_tsilvius.

Two quick things:

1. The Studio team is aware of ads playing in YouTube videos and it is documented as a known issue at Youtube Studio videos play ads - Instructure Community - 639355 . I am not sure if/how the Studio team is going to get around Google/YouTube and ads playing back without some extensive trickery. Google/YouTube has made it very different to avoid/skip ads.
2. Akos is located in (I believe) Hungry so I am not sure if you will get a response today. Working with Canvas Support and having a ticket/case is the recommended way to get eyes on it but I wanted to loop in Akos.

-Doug

[QC99_tsilvius]

I appreciate these, Doug. Working around those ads does seem like a tricky issue.

last favor: Would you point me in the direction of filling out a support ticket? 

[dbrace]

You are welcome, @QC99_tsilvius; as a fellow Pennsylvanian (I live in Allentown and work at Lehigh Carbon Community College) and individual with a music background (my Bachelors is in Music Education).

Does your school have a support contract with Canvas Support that allows you to contact Canvas Support directly? If it does, from inside of Canvas you should have options available in the "Help" area.  Those options could be chat, phone, or email.

If you do not know or if your school does not have that available to you, you would need to report this to whoever you typically work with to address Canvas problems or questions.

-Doug

[QC99_tsilvius]

Well, hello there, Neighbor! I live in Bethlehem.

I'll check with our tech dept for any leads to help with this. thanks for the tip.

A curious thing happened just today. 

I don't know if this is being worked on that produced the appearing/disappearing play button (and I just happened to refresh with a super-coincidence timing) OR if there is something locally that might be inadvertently blocking this feature.

BEFORE...woohoo!!!

THEN ABOUT 15mins LATER...womp womp

[dbrace]

Hi Neighbor!

I do not have any inside information and I have "tagged"/"pinged" @AkosFarago in a few other areas of the Community related to the new media player (at least one was related to the "play" button/icon) but have not heard anything back.

-Doug

[QC99_tsilvius]

Thanks Doug. I think that maybe this page and the screenshots can convey our user experience when others get the chance to chime in. Again, thanks for your help with this. 

Todd

[AkosFarago · Accepted solution]

@QC99_tsilvius , @dbrace we are already working on the audio player bug and aiming to deploy the fix to production possibly today!

[QC99_tsilvius]

@AkosFarago  You've just made my day! Thanks so much for your team's quick response to this. 

[jackie_maggo]

I am having the same issue for audio files - will updated here when this is resolved (was still not working at the end of last week).

[AkosFarago]

@jackie_maggo , @QC99_tsilvius , @dbrace the audio player play button issue will be fixed with the Wednesday Canvas production deployment. Unfortunately, we couldn't get this rolled out before. Thank you for your patience.

[dbrace]

Thank you, @AkosFarago. Will this be documented in the deploy notes at https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/Canvas-Deploy-Notes-2025-05-07/ta-p/640823 or anywhere else?

-Doug

[AkosFarago]

@dbrace I'll check with the team responsible for the deploy notes to see where we could include this (apologies, I am out of office until next week so it will take a bit more time).

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

@AkosFarago , that is great news that there's a bug fix coming on May 7.  Will this include the fix for iPad and iPhone problems with the player?  Right now that is the major complaint we are hearing.

[QC99_tsilvius]

Looking forward to this. Thanks for your work and communication, @AkosFarago 

[awright10]

We have the same problem with iOS devices. For some reason the embed feature didn't seem to work for us either. However, when we asked teacher to add it via their google drive and click embed that way we were able to get it to work. I hope Instructure fixes this soon. It is causing teachers to have to go back through and embed resources for work they have already done.

[AkosFarago]

@Nancy_Webb_CCSF , @awright10 yes, the fix will be live within a few hours and is platform independent. It will resolve the play button issue for iOS devices as well. 

[QC99_tsilvius]

This is exciting. I've been communicating with our teachers experiencing the no-play-button issue and it comes and goes. What's been interesting is when I see the play button, they do not. Then when my play button goes missing, it appears for them. I've shared that this just means the team is working on the solution.