This page to highlights some of the known issues with the current version of Blackboard.
- Achievements
- Announcements
- Assessments
- Assignments
- Browser
- Blogs
- Calendar
- Content
- Discussion Board
- Documentation
- Editor (also known as Content Editor)
- Grade Center
- Groups
- Learning Modules
- My Blackboard
- My Institution
- Notifications
- Privileges
- Reporting
- Self and Peer Assessment
- Wikis
Achievements
Issue | Students cannot view Achievements in My Achievements (Post-Upgrade Q2 2017). |
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Workaround |
Announcements
Issue | After posting an Announcement with a Course Link, the Announcement is not visible to anyone, including the instructor. |
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Workaround | Make sure that the content that is linked to in the Course Link is visible to students. |
Assessments
Issue | Students can access an Assessment with a Due Date that is in a Learning Module via their My Blackboard updates. This could be unintended if the instructor requires sequential viewing of the Learning Module. |
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Workaround | Add the Assessment as a content item outside the Learning Module with adaptive release rules added for review of the Learning Module content. |
Assignments
Issue | Student submissions that contain special characters (e.g., colon, hash) are not downloadable/viewable. |
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Workaround | Avoid special characters in filenames. Use letters, numbers, and underscore. Give proper file extensions (e.g., .doc or .docx for an MS Word document). |
Issue | Group Assignments returned with an attachment containing spaces generate a 404 error. |
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Workaround | Avoid special characters and spaces in the file attachment you return to the student. Use letters, numbers, and underscore. Give proper file extensions (e.g., .doc or .docx for an MS Word document). |
Issue | New Assignments get Created with Date of None. When you create a new Assignment, the ‘Date Created’ does not appear in Grade Center. |
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Workaround | Blackboard is aware of the issue. |
Issue | Unable to Reorder Assignment Content Items (Post-Upgrade Q2 2018).
Users are Unable to reorder Assignment content items. |
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Workaround |
This then adds the position information that will let you re-order correctly. |
Browser
Troubleshooting Browser Issues
Issue | Content: You’ve just logged in, but you are asked to authenticate for a piece of content (like a banner image on the home page).![]() |
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Workaround | This is typically a browser cookie issue. Clear Firefox Blackboard Cookies Clear MSIE Blackboard Cookies |
Issue | Browsers (Internet Explorer 9 or later, Chrome 21 or later) will display an “insecure content” or “mixed content” security notification if you try to load non-secure (http URL) external content within Blackboard (e.g., embedded Youtube videos).
Note: Firefox 23 or later now enables mixed content blocking by default. |
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Workaround | Our Blackboard is running as a secure server (https URL). Modern browsers now warn if you are trying to load insecure content within a secure page – as it could possibly be malicious. If you trust the content you are trying to display, you would need to explicitly allow the content to load, otherwise you would get a blank area where you expect content to appear. More information:
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Issue | Chrome (v21 or later) browser now has a more subtle warning about “insecure content.” This may cause students to be unaware of the issue when trying to view external content within Blackboard (e.g., embedded Youtube videos). |
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Workaround | Chrome (v21 or later) now uses a shield icon ![]() |
Issue | Mac – The scrollbars in OS X Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) or later are hidden until activated by use. http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/03/show-scroll-bars-mac-os-x-lion/ |
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Workaround | Set Scroll Bars to display all the time in Mac OS X:
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Issue | Test Options layout displays incorrectly with certain browser (Firefox, IE) when the Page Help is turned off. |
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Workaround | Blackboard won’t fix the issue. Turn on the Page Help (question mark icon) at the top of the page next to the Edit Mode. |
Issue | PDF Files Containing One or More Periods in the File Name (in addition to file extension) do not use the Entire Frame when Loaded in Firefox and Chrome.
A PDF file containing one or more periods in the file name (in addition to the file extension). For example, This.Is.A.Test.pdf. The PDF file is uploaded to Learn as a File content item. When the file is opened in Firefox, the PDF does not use the entire frame available. Only a small amount of the vertical space available is used to display the file. |
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Workaround | Blackboard won’t fix the issue.
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Issue | Mac OS X Safari 9 (or later) Grade Center stops loading. |
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Workaround | For now, use a non-Safari browser on OS X, e.g., Firefox, Chrome. |
Issue | Mac OS X Cannot submit assignment when using Safari 11.1.
If you try to submit, it seems nothing happens. If you wait long enough, Blackboard will return “Failed to submit Assignment”. |
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Workaround |
Issue | MS Internet Explorer 11 (or earlier). |
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Workaround | MSIE 11 will no longer be supported by JHU. Microsoft ended active development for Internet Explorer in January 2016. Over time, we have found more features of Learn no longer work properly with IE11 and Blackboard will not resolve issues specific to IE11. We recommend an alternate browser, e.g. Chrome, Edge, Firefox. |
Issue | Troubleshooting Opening, Viewing, or Printing Adobe Acrobat PDF Files |
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Workaround | Sometimes the built-in Browser PDF viewer does not display a particular PDF properly.
1) install Adobe Acrobat Reader Get Adobe Acrobat Reader: http://get.adobe.com/reader/ 2) download the PDF first, then view it You would want to enable Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Browser. More details at Troubleshooting Opening, Viewing, or Printing Adobe Acrobat PDF Files |
Issue | HTTP 400 Error |
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Workaround | Please clear your browser’s cache and cookies and set the time range to all time. Here’s how for Chrome:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/9098093 – clear cache & cookies |
Issue | Safari 13.1 and Panopto causing logout
We’ve been getting recent reports of students using Safari 13.1, who are triggering a Blackboard logout when they encounter a Panopto video or tool link.
We’ve been able to replicate the issue, and it seems to be due to a Safari 13.1 security setting “Website tracking: Prevent cross-site tracking”
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Workaround | 1) If using Safari 13.1, Panopto recommends turning off “Prevent cross-site tracking”
https://support.panopto.com/s/article/How-to-Enable-Third-Party-Cookies-in-Supported-Browsers > 5. Enable Third Party Cookies in Safari 2) Alternatively, use a different browser, e.g., Chrome.
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Issue | Safari 14.0.1 on macOS Mojave (10.14) Choose File / Browse My Computer does not work. |
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Workaround | Apple is aware of the issue, and plans to fix in a future release. In the meantime, we suggest using an alternate browser (e.g., Chrome). |
Blogs
Issue | |
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Workaround |
Calendar
Issue | |
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Workaround |
Content
Issue | Content Area > Build Content > File > Browse Computer: You get an “Action not complete: Adding the selected content to the specified folder causes the folder to exceed its quota” when you try to upload a file. |
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Workaround | By default, courses and organizations have a 2GB course quota. It can be expanded upon request by contacting blackboard@jhu.edu. |
Issue | Build Content > File does not auto-populate the Name field (e.g., with the uploaded filename) as in prior versions of Blackboard. |
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Workaround | Fill in the Name field. |
Issue | Unable to Reorder Content Items via Drag and Drop (Post-Upgrade Q2 2016 CU5).
We’re getting reports of odd behavior when you try to drag and drop a content item when it causes the browser to scroll. |
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Workaround | Blackboard is aware of the issue. In the meantime, use the keyboard reorder menu (in the upper right). |
Issue | Instructor Edit Mode Off: Content Collection context menu (Post-Upgrade Q2 2017). |
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Workaround | This is not a functional issue but a visual issue, and only appears to Instructors when Edit Mode is Off. It does not appear to students. |
Issue | Unable to Reorder Assignment Content Items (Post-Upgrade Q2 2018).
Users are Unable to reorder Assignment content items. |
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Workaround |
This then adds the position information that will let you re-order correctly. |
Discussion Board
Issue | |
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Workaround |
Documentation
Issue | |
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Workaround |
Editor (Content Editor)
Issue | Editor does not handle certain HTML tags, e.g., <PRE> content does not show up in mono-spaced font. |
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Workaround | A Feature/Enhancement Request was submitted. |
Issue | When the Spell Checker is enabled in the Content Editor (VTBE), content that is re-edited and submitted with any additions or changes to the text in the VTBE causes adding of extra span tags in the HTML code for the text for each pre-existing misspelled word from before the edit.
Example: If you typed in “colour” – under US English this would be misspelled <span>colour</span> While visually you wouldn’t see it, where it becomes problematic is the Wiki tool – where you have a certain max character count. All the extra <span> … </span> tags are counted in the character count. |
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Workaround | Use the HTML code view and remove the extraneous span tags. |
Issue | Equation Editor – fails to add second equation when re-editting item (Post-Upgrade Q2 2017).
When editing a Discussion or Content Item that already has a Math Editor equation, if another equation is added, it appears only as text. |
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Workaround |
Issue | Send Email in large course generates an error (e.g., Server Error 404 – File or directory not found. 500 – Internal server error). |
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Workaround |
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Issue | Blackboard emails and Office 365 mail – students not seeing daily notifications. |
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Workaround | Blackboard emails can be sent to a low-priority folder called Clutter (which is separate from Junk). Clutter is a feature that got rolled out to Office 365 in 2015. |
Grade Center
Issue | Uploading grades. |
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Workaround | Grade Center: Work Offline > Upload only allows 32 characters for any text cell. |
Issue | ‘Points possible’ in Weighted column may be incorrect if you are using Categories and Weight Columns Proportionally. |
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Workaround | Use ‘Weight Columns Equally’ |
Issue | Mac OS X Missing Grade Center (Horizontal) Scrollbars in Chrome and Safari (6.0.4/6.0.5) |
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Workaround | We’ve found a couple of workarounds:
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Issue | Mac OS X Safari 9 Grade Center stops loading. |
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Workaround | For now, use a non-Safari browser on OS X, e.g., Chrome, Firefox. |
Groups
Issue | Editing Group Properties Changes the Name of a Renamed Group Discussion Board Forum.
When clicking Submit on editing a group it will result in the discussion board forum name reverting to the group name. There is no warning message that the discussion board forum name will be changed. |
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Workaround | To fix: Manually rename the group discussion.
To avoid: Edit/Manage Groups from the Groups page, not from within the Group. |
Learning Modules
Issue | Students can access an Assessment with a Due Date that is in a Learning Module via their My Blackboard updates.
This could be unintended if the instructor requires sequential viewing of the Learning Module. |
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Workaround | Add the Assessment as a content item outside the Learning Module with adaptive release rules added for review of the Learning Module content. |
My Blackboard
My Blackboard is a single location for access to user tools, such as grades. To learn more, see My Blackboard.
Issue | |
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Workaround |
My Institution
Issue | My Tasks module filtering by course does not work |
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Workaround | The My Courses Plus tool pad allows you to access course tasks for the next seven days, and links to the tasks tool in the course.It can be used to quickly see what tasks are due soon for just the courses you are interested in, e.g., Term: SP16 courses.
Unfortunately, the tool pad doesn’t stay “expanded” between sessions, so you’d have to re-expand the tool pad each time you get back into Blackboard. |
Issue | My Institution (or in Course) > Add Module Search throws error (Q4 2019) |
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Workaround | An error message occurs when a user selects categories under “Add Course Module” on the course module page. Or tries to search for a module.
Workaround:
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Notifications
Issue | Daily Notifications: We are aware of the following issues with some individual’s email daily digest notifications:
Also can see incorrect counts for Blogs/Wikis even though the tools are not used in the course. |
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Workaround | Blackboard continues investigating.
In the meantime, the Notifications Dashboard within Blackboard should be correct. |
Issue | Phishing emails appearing to come from Blackboard |
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Workaround | See phishing emails appearing to come from Blackboard for more details. |
Privileges
Issue | |
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Workaround |
Reporting
Issue | The Last Run Date for Course Activity Overview Report, Single Course User Participation Report, and Student Overview for Single Course Report is not course-specific.
The last run date for these specific reports shows the time it was run in another course. |
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Workaround | Blackboard is aware of the issue and plans to fix it in a future version. |
Self and Peer Assessment
Issue | |
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Workaround |
Wikis
Issue | |
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Workaround |