Students unable to access Google Docs using Canvas Google Drive LTI

[TechRav]

We have been using the Canvas Google Drive LTI since we got Canvas 3 years ago without any issues. Then a week ago, I started getting reports that students could not access Google Docs which were posted by their teacher in assignments and modules on Canvas. Instead, the LTI tries to open and then produces the following error message: 

Google Drive

We cannot access the requested file. Please contact the administrator of the Google drive account for further details.

What makes this so perplexing is we have changed NOTHING in the past few weeks with our Canvas or Google consoles. The same students who could access Google docs in the past through Canvas, now can't. And if I try to access these google docs as a teacher in the Canvas assignment, I can, BUT if I act as a student in the same web browser on the same assignment, I get the error message. This is clearly a Canvas issue, not browser or user based or based on Google Drive.

Below is a screencast video of the issue.

Error message using Canvas Google Drive LTI as a student 

I reached out to Canvas support over a week ago and after repeated calls and emails. they have upgraded this to Level 3 support. Has anyone faced a similar issue and found a solution?

Thanks!

Tzvi Pittinsky

[EMichel]

I tried this already, any other outlet you may have in terms of fixing this. I have more students struggling with the same issue even though I already tried to delete and reauthenticate.

[EMichel]

I have tried doing the disconnect and the delete section and yet have not been successful in getting students to have access to the assignments. The constant loading circle is still very much apparent and continues to disrupt the flow of the classroom. Any other suggestions? I have yet to hear back from Canvas.

[audra_agnelly]

Ran into the constant circle with a Cloud Assignment the other day. That one seemed different, I was not able to view the doc, nor was anyone else in the course, and I was also seeing the Request Access button which I have not run into before with this tool. It was a shared assignment, so I'm wondering if that was the issue.

I was sent another spinning circle assignment for one sutdent. To get it to load: We removed the integration from the student's Canvas settings, cleared the browser cache for all time, closed the browser, logged back in and authenticated the assignment. In the past, the Canvas Support steps have had us clear the cache, but usually we just need to remove the integration and then reauthorize it. Hope this helps.

[ericmichael1]

This set of steps has been working for us. 

Resolution
It should now be fixed for those three students. If this happens to anyone else, try the following steps:

Have the students go into Canvas account settings, and under Approved Integrations delete anything that says "Google Drive LTI IAD-Prod"

Go to https://myaccount.google.com/, click Security, and under "your connections to third-party apps & services" click Google Drive LTI by Canvas, then scroll down and click "Delete all connections you have with Google Drive LTI by Canvas", and confirm

3. Go back to an assignment in Canvas that uses Google Drive to Canvas integration and reauthorize the applet.

[jnobili]

We do something similar to this.

• On myaccount.google.com->Security,->your connections to third-party apps & services,  click Google Drive LTI by Canvas, then scroll down and click "Delete all connections you have with Google Drive LTI by Canvas"
• In Canvas, in settings delete Google Drive and and Google LTI (non-mobile)
• Reboot to clear cache
• Back to Canvas and re-add Google Drive in settings
• Open an assignment and authorize the LTI.

We have had great results since things started "working" again.

[jhumphrey2]

Can we PLEASE have an official statement from Canvas support on this issue and suggested fixes? Ask as I have heard from some that if in fact you remove the Goggle LTI as some have suggested that that will also remove any assignments teachers have posted using that tool?? 

[audra_agnelly]

My understanding of "removing the LTI" is not the removal of the LTI from the institution's account but the removal of the LTI token from the user's account

[jnobili]

This is what we do. We remove from the student connection to the LTI, not the district allowed LTIs. Then we reauthorize the LTI with the student.

[wangd]

1/29/2025 I've had really mixed results trying to readding the Google file picker and LTI integration back.  The issue is that once you delete the Google service and remove the LTI additional service on Canvas and then remove any integration in Google Drive/Google account side, when you try to establish the Google Drive service, and it states it was added successfully, we get a 403 error in the Google Drive file picker screen and still get the spinning loading circle when trying to open a Gdoc.  You cannot choose to sign out to try to force an Authorization window to come up.  After about half an hour of trying to remove and readd, it'll all of a sudden come up with the Authorization screen and then works.  When I grab the 403 iframe URL, it's this address --

 https://accounts.google.com/AccountChooser?continue=https://docs.google.com/picker?protocol%3Dgadget...

oauth token was redacted.

[24af42d1053a2d4]

Any updates on this?

[NoahBoswell]

Here's a solution that worked for us:

1) Have the student navigate to their Canvas Account settings, and under Web Services (approved integrations), have them find the Google Drive LTI IAD-Prod one, then click the little trash can icon over to the right. This will delete the connection from the account.

2) Have them open the course they want to submit assignments for. Click the 'Google Drive' link via the course navigation (note, if you don't see this, it needs to be enabled by the teacher / admin in the course settings so students can see it). Upon clicking on it, click the purple SIGN OUT button in the top-right hand corner, if they haven't already been signed out. Then, have them sign back in, and this will automatically update and resync their account across all courses.

Hope this helps a bit and that this works for you!

[jhumphrey2]

As Noah Boswell point out, manually doing the above procedure per student that is affected has seems to work so far as well. But this is a manual per student operation and honestly if we have many more reports of this issue - doing this manually per student can be tedious. Still waiting from any official word from Canvas on an actual global fix that can be applied once to globally address this issue without affecting current and past assignments... 

[NoahBoswell]

It's strange, because 90% of our students were able to immediately re-access it with no trouble, we only had to do this for about 10% of the students that were still experiencing this issue.

[jnobili]

We have experienced this with a number of our users, and yes, it is a bit tedious. However I have gotten it down to a 2 minute process that can get them in and out using tips from this thread and past experiences. It would be great if Canvas and Google would publicly admit the issue and where they are with a fix. This is a renewal year for our district and issues like this make it a hard sell.

My process:

• On myaccount.google.com->Security,->your connections to third-party apps & services,  click Google Drive LTI by Canvas, then scroll down and click "Delete all connections you have with Google Drive LTI by Canvas"
• In Canvas, in settings delete Google Drive and and Google LTI (non-mobile)
• Reboot to clear cache
• Back to Canvas and re-add Google Drive in settings
• Open an assignment and authorize the LTI.

[germanyj]

We are not having trouble with Google Docs being unavailable. We have the issue of Canvas uploading incomplete versions of Google files: images missing, slides missing. This is happening to students who are turning in work thru the LTI or teachers linking or embedding Google Files. It seems to be the app where both teachers and students are running into these incomplete files.

[diavlen]

I've experienced this problem.  In my case, some students are able to access the assignment, while others are not.  When comparing the permissions on the two sets of students, we found some differences.  (See attachment).   The question is, what is happening (or not happening) to the permissions on some students?

[audra_agnelly]

This issue was fixed back in January, but today (May 😎 we started to receive reports of this behavior again. We see a 500 error, but the error message is a little bit different than what I've seen in the past. What is similar to the earlier issue is that the authentication is not the problem: when we look at the student's account we can open prior assignment and preview the google doc, I can see the course folder in their Google Drive with the prior assignments that they've opened in that course. The most recent assignment they successfully opened create a doc in their Drive on May 5th (just 3 days ago), but a new assignment that they tried to open for the first time today gives that error and another upcoming assignment that had not been opened before also gave the error. We can open Google Drive from the course navigation, so again, it's not an issue with their account authentication. Some students in the class (3 that we know of are having the issue) others to our knowledge are fine.

This is the error message truncated: 

http request error: 500 (https://google-drive-lti-iad-prod.instructure.com/api/cloud_assignments/448669809/student?jwt=. . .)

[agarciatms]

I am going to +1 this as we are also now experiencing this issue today with a few students after the initial issue was fixed back in January. We are receiving the same 500 error. At the moment, we have not found a workaround or solution but will report back if anything comes up.

[MARISSASCHRADER]

Good Morning, 

I am going to take a leap here and say that based on the error you are receiving that this is not actually an error from the Google Drive/Assignments LTI 1.3, but rather relates to the old Google LTI, GoogleApps/Docs Cloud Assignment (LTI 1.1). The link address in the error actually shows "google-drive-lti-iad-prod.instructure.com/api/cloud_assignments/..." which is for the old Google Docs Cloud Assignment LTI. We have been getting these errors as well and we have been telling our staff all school year long that they need to move to the new Google Drive/Assignments LTI 1.3 as the old Google Docs Cloud Assignments LTI does not function well, randomly gives errors, or prevents access to the assignment/doc sporadically. Our district will be fully removing this application after this school year as it causes a lot of issues for staff and students. 

Ultimately, I hope this helps clarify the possible issues. I would encourage you to recommend staff move to using the Google Drive/Assignments LTI 1.3 application going forward.  

[audra_agnelly]

Yes, that is correct, this entire thread is a comment on the issue that began occurring with the Google Cloud Assignment by Canvas integration in January. That was resolved but last week we started seeing the same behavior.

We are fully aware if the ongoing issues with authentication, but Canvas continues to support this tool, some district are not able to switch to the Google LTI 1.3 due to the confugurations they are using with their Google Enterprise accounts.

[MARISSASCHRADER]

Okay, was just making sure as we were informed that Google Apps/Cloud Assignments was no longer going to be improved/updated/supported and we've not been able to get much info regarding the LTI 1.1 tool. I hope they help you and get it resolved. 

[bailey_danielle]

We have started encountering this 500 error with Google Cloud assignments as well. It is random and only some students are affected. Has anyone found a solution yet, besides having the teacher change the assignment to Google LTI 1.3?