Student who cannot access Canvas on any web browser - won't load

[EvanDonovan]

We have a student for whom the Canvas website never fully loads. On Safari, the dashboard will just continue loading but the course images and names will never show up. You can see a screenshot of this here: https://snipboard.io/hg2s8D.jpg

Meanwhile, on Chrome it only comes to a white screen.

She says she has cleared her cache & cookies and checked her virus protection software for any needed exceptions.

She has tried on both a Mac and a PC, both on networks with and without a firewall, and it has not worked on any computer she has tested.

[chriscas]

Hi @EvanDonovan,

If everything the student has said is accurate, i'm really at a loss.  Generally the white screen, in my experience s a Canvas admin, is caused by either an out of date operating system, out of date browser, or interference from security software (which may include a VPN).  If the student has tried multiple computers, multiple browsers, and multiple internet connections, that rules almost all of those things out unless all of the devices she's using are very old.  If you have a local IT department, this seems like something they may be able to assist with.  I'd usually recommend contacting Canvas support, but since this is almost for sure a local issue, I don't think they are really going to be able to do much in this case.

-Chris

[EvanDonovan]

Thanks, @chriscas - yes, those were my thoughts about her situation as well. It doesn't make sense for it not to be localized to a specific machine.

I have asked her to try Canvas for Mobile just to see if that works. I will update this thread once I hear back.

Unfortunately, we don't have a local IT department since we are a fully-online school. I am the only IT support the students have 🙂

I did also contact Canvas support with the same exact wording as in this post, but I haven't necessarily had the best experience with them in the past in terms of their responsiveness.

I do wonder whether the problem is isolated to the Canvas homepage, so we've also sent her direct links to her courses. I will update this thread on whether those work.

[chriscas]

Hi @EvanDonovan,

If you're a Canvas admin, you could check the student's page views to get an idea of the browser being used.  If you see multiple browsers listed, you'll at least know she's tried different things as she has stated.  If you continue to ee the same browser listed over and over, that might be a red flag.  At a minimum you should get an indication of what browser she' actually using and whether it's up to date.

Good luck on this one!

-Chris

[EvanDonovan]

Thanks @chriscas - that was a great suggestion. I looked at this and it looks like every time she tried Safari on her Mac recently, she wasn't able to get past the homepage. Prior to Sept. 14, she was.

Meanwhile, I don't see any user agent strings from Chrome on Mac, which makes sense if she said that didn't even load part of the homepage.

Finally, though, the only other lines are see are from a Windows 10 machine on Chrome and they include pages besides the homepage, but with no seconds spent on the page or participation. So I am asking her what that machine was, and what she saw when she was on that machine.

It seems like she may have only tried 2 different machines, actually - unless there were others she tried that didn't load at all.

I also learned that the full user agent string shows in a tooltip if you hover over what is printed in the column, so that was very helpful.

[BethCrook]

If you are the admin, are you able to create a rogue test student account and give to him/her to try logging into on their computer?  One that you also tested on your machine and have verified to have already working.   That will indicate if the issue lies on their computer/browser versus in the user account.

[EvanDonovan]

Hi @BethCrook , that is a great idea. I will look into that.