missing content that was submitted in a discussion forum

[CynthiaBraggs]

I submitted an assignment in a discussion forum and when it went back to see if there were any replies it was not  there if I never submitted

[trose1]

I have had two students in the past week say something similar. Their initial post was gone and they are "not able to" reply to others. We have "post first before seeing others" turned on.

When we "act as" the students, it allows a reply, but the initial posts are not visible.

[HeatherAhern · Accepted solution]

Hello @CynthiaBraggs,

Do you know if you were working on a discussion for longer than 30 minutes? Discussion replies are not meant to have a lot of time spent on them so they can "time out" after around 30 minutes and basically erase any information even though you still see it. Were you able to confirm your post was there after you submitted it? If you can confirm that it was posted, I would recommend reaching out to our support team to see if we can take a look if in fact it was submitted.

Hello @trose1 ,

It is possible that the above situation could have happened to your students as well. If students can confirm with a screenshot or some kind of evidence that the post was there and is now gone, I encourage them to reach out to support so we can investigate more.

If students plan to spend an extended amount of time on a discussion reply, we recommend working in a word document or something outside of Canvas since the pages refresh regularly and can time out. This would ensure that their work is saved and then past it into the discussion when they are ready to submit.

How do I contact Canvas Support?

[DanBurgess]

@HeatherAhern, is that timeout independent from the timeout setting for being logged out of Canvas?
I am guessing it is, but want to confirm.

[trose1]

Hi,

We discovered a very outdated browser version was causing the issue for one of the students. I don't know if time-out was a factor but, after updating, the student no longer had the problem. The problem was very strange - certain posts and ability to post hidden in certain discussion but not others. We couldn't make sense of the pattern. Oh well, water under the bridge 🙂