[ARCHIVED] Published page not showing up for students

[sandy]

Yesterday I had a strange issue - a published page was invisible to students. The module was open and other pages were visible. Removing the requirements in the module setting did not allow students to see the page. Removing the page from the module and adding it back did not help. All settings were verified to be similar to other visible pages in the course.

Finally, I copied the HTML for the page, created a duplicate page with pasted HTML code, and published the replacement page. That solved the problem as students were able to view the replacement page. 

Has anyone had a similar issue? What was the resolution? Is there a better/easier way?

[smanis]

I'm having the exact same issue right now. A page that I published weeks ago (in the module I use for the syllabus) is not visible to my students. We, too, tried checking all the different permissions in edit mode, I tried un-publishing and re-publishing, etc. No avail. I'll try what you did! 

[Robbie_Grant]

 @sandy ,

Were you able to find an answer to your question? I am going to go ahead and mark this question as answered because there hasn't been any more activity in a while so I assume that you have the information that you need. If you still have a question about this or if you have information that you would like to share with the community, by all means, please do come back and leave a comment.  Also, if this question has been answered by one of the previous replies, please feel free to mark that answer as correct.

Robbie

[sandy]

This issue apparently has not been resolved. We are seeing this happen in more courses, not just mine, and time is wasted re-creating pages that should be visible. Please escalate this issue as it continues to occur. 

[HOLLIGOODRICH]

Sept. 26, 2023 - Very same issue. To not have validity of material posted is a pretty big concern. If this is a school's format for disseminating material to students, the Copy To button should work. Forcing a work around for teachers, not cool.

[antonella_calor]

@RobbieGrant This problem is still there. Two different courses, two different instructors had the same problem. The page was published, in modules (and the module was published!) but students still could not see the page. I did exactly what @SandyPowell did: copied the HTML for the page, created a new page, pasted HTML code,  deleted the 'malfunctioning' page and published the replacement page. That solved the problem as students were able to view the replacement page. The problem remains: do I need to warn all the instructors to switch to student view every time the create and publish a page in order to make sure that students see it?

[maria_widmer]

I have experienced this issue as well, with the same context and the same solution.   @antonella_calor 

[spencert]

I am experiencing this same issue also. We are going to try the resolution you seemed to have success with to see if we can fix ours too.

So, before we tried to "fix" the issue with ours, our course designer created the page, and it existed, just not in the module. As it turned out, all we had to do is go to the module where the page belonged, added a content page and selected the already built page. It appears to be working and a simple fix which leads me to believe, perhaps my issue is not the same as the one you are having.

[dlapetin]

I can confirm that this is still occurring... content page was visible in module to teacher, but not in Student View or for a student test account. Attempted copying the page and adding it to the module, but still not visible. Only solution that worked was the earlier recommendation to copy the HTML into a new document added to the module, delete the original, then publish. I will add that I, too, had module requirements enabled (as Sandy Powell mentioned in her original post). 

[sandy]

@RobbieGrant This happened again in a different course, and included several content pages. The pages were published and visible to the designer, teacher, and TA's, but students could not see the pages. Student View confirmed that the pages were invisible to students. The only fix was -- again -- to copy the HTML, create a new page, paste the HTML, delete the old page, then rename the new page with the original name.

Students, teachers, and TAs were very frustrated to have the content disappear, and designer time was wasted figuring out what happened and fixing each and every page. What needs to happen to escalate this issue on Canvas' side?

[dlapetin]

Hi, Sandy - I expect that the next step to escalate the issue would be to "Report a Problem" from within Canvas to open a support ticket. (You can probably link to this page in your request so they can see the steps being taken to work around the issue). This way you'll have a support ticket that can be tracked. 

[cmcooper]

Greetings,

We have experienced the same trouble with pages visible and apparently published in Instructor view which are not visible in Student view. After two phone calls and a helpdesk ticket with Canvas, myself and our University IT staff determined that multiple syncs from a blueprint course to an associated course had caused the issue. There is no way to correct this problem as a user; we have to rebuild each page in the affected courses. 

One L1 support person I spoke to said that each page has its own internal id, so if the page changed in the associated course, the blueprint course could no longer affect it (and Instructors cannot correct the problem). This doesn't explain the behavior we've observed, but explains why deleting (not duplicating) the page and building a new page with the same rich content editor content solves the problem.

This is our first term using Canvas, and this problem (only detectable in Student view) has impaired the trust of our faculty in Canvas's publish setting. I'm hopeful that future courses built using a single blueprint sync won't have the same trouble. 

[yklaw]

I can confirm that I can see this problem this semester.  I will note that unlike in cmcooper‌'s case, I did not use the blueprint sync tool for this purpose, though the course has definitely been sync'ed multiple times (over the course of a few years).

Again, the fix appears to require recreating the page as  @dlapetin ‌ and  @sandy ‌ described above.

[cmcooper]

One update on this: some of the pages that we were publishing but which

weren't visible to students were explained by ensuring the allow in mastery

paths checkbox at the bottom of the editing view of the page was unchecked.

I was able to connect to a knowledgable Canvas phone support person who

explained that if you check this checkbox while editing a page, the page

will disappear from the student view until the mastery path criteria

attached to that page are fulfilled. In our case, we were checking the box,

but not setting any specific mastery path criteria, and the page was being

hidden from students by Canvas until the criteria we didn't specific were

fulfilled (that is, the page would never have become visible to students).

Ensuring this checkbox (at the bottom of the page when you are editing a

Page as a designer or Teacher) is un-checked has helped us resolve pages

becoming invisible to students (except where we've misbehaved with the

Blueprints feature). I hope this clarification helps others.

[mikeg]

I had the problem of hidden, but published pages.  It stemmed from having accidentally checked the "Mastery Path" box.  However, unchecking it didn't solve the problem until I went and edited the page's title and saved the change.

[frances]

Having the same problem. neither the Syllabus nor the Modules are visible by students. Course is starting next week, and not sure I have a work-around. 

[kona]

 @frances , are you referring to the navigational links (on the left in your course) not showing up? Do you have them visible to students - How do I manage Course Navigation links?. If so, the next thing to check is if there is content in your Modules and if it is, then is it all published?

If none of this seems to be the problem then my recommendation is to contact Canvas Support. They can help you figure out what's going on! To contact support click on the Help link in Canvas and Report a Problem.

Kona

[frances]

Hi Kona,

Thanks so much! sorry for my ignorance. All the best. Daniel.

[kona]

No worries! Just glad I was able to help!!

[spraguem]

I had this problem today. Somebody (most likely I did it but maybe it was one of my TAs) accidentally enabled Mastery Paths, making my published page disappear for the students with no indication other than students complaining that they could not see the page (NOT GOOD). Once I tracked down the issue (thanks to the comments above) I could not simply disable the Mastery Paths checkbox. I had to edit, make a small change, and save the page. Then I had to unpublish and re-publish the page. Only after this was the page visible to the students.

Canvas: IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS EASY TO ACCIDENTALLY ENABLE OR OBTUSE AND DIFFICULT TO FIX!!!!! Please fix this.

[astolle]

I see that this post is years old, but I just had a teacher call reporting the same issue. So I thought I'd point out that it's still an ongoing problem. She also had the "Allow Mastery Paths" box checked.

[laurene_debordf]

This happened to me this week -

• Page was clearly published under "PAGES"
• Page was clearly published in the proper "MODULE"
• Page was NOT visible in the "STUDENT VIEW"

After reading this post, I checked the "Mastery Path" tick boxes, both were checked.  

I can very nearly guarantee you I DID NOT EVER check the "Mastery Path" box on either of the pages that magically disappeared from my students' view, including their "Week in Review Checklist" for the first week of a condensed 5-week class. 

It was not an imported page.  While I imported some content from a spring course, I created this (invisible to students) page specifically for this course.  

This is an important document to go AWOL at the end of Week One when our class moves at the speed of sound. 

I don't use mastery paths and have no reason to enable the setting, especially for this course, a writing course. 

Is it possible there's some default setting elsewhere in Canvas that causes the page to auto-populate "Add to Mastery Paths"?  

NOTE:  I run APIs for discussion collation and user analytics, but theoretically, those operate "outside the sandbox."     Wanted to disclose use of APIs in case that's a common denominator here?  Please don't take my APIs away, though.  They've saved my sanity.  Mostly. 

I would MUCH rather double-check the MP boxes than aggregate/collate course access and discussion data for 100 students by  hand.  Canvas is always welcome to escalate those feature requests (that were available in Blackboard) so I don't have to run APIs.  

EDITED TO ADD - NOT GROUSING AT THIS POSTER, GROUSING AT CANVAS, JUST ADDING A "ME, TOO!" TO THE POST ABOVE.  

[LisaDuckworth]

This issue is still a current issue. Thanks for all the advice on how to fix it. I was able to quickly get this resolved.