[ARCHIVED] Student name auto-populated with gibberish when added to course-- help!

[eileenliang_cun]

I am having trouble with adding a few students to my course. The process if usually pretty straightforward. I click "+ People," enter an email address, and then when prompted ("We were unable to find matches below. Select any you would like to create as new users. Unselected will be skipped at this time."), I add the student's name, then send out the invite. However, this time, I've encountered something that I have never seen before. When I add a student's email address, Canvas auto-populates a random string of letters and numbers instead of letting me enter the student's name:

Furthermore, this student, after accepting the invite, still shows up as as "pending user." His name is not displayed correctly on the roster, BUT it is right when you click into his account:

Does anyone have any insight into this? I've tried adding alternative emails, used different browsers, cleared my cache a number of times. I am truly stumped. Thanks for any help at all!

[ericwerth]

Hi  @eileenliang_cun .  This is very interesting, and unfortunately I don't have a solution to the problem.  I just tried this myself and didn't have a string of numbers/letter auto-populated.  I am going to share you question with the https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/admins?sr=search&searchId=d2910568-f425-4902-851a-72ee4d4703c...‌ user group to see if anyone there has encountered something similar or has an idea on what could be causing this problem.

Best wishes!

[eileenliang_cun]

Hi Eric, 

Thanks! I appreciate it!

[ericwerth]

No problem!  If you figure out what is happening, please let us know!

[tdelillo]

Might also be useful to ping the https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/free-for-teachers?sr=search&searchId=2ea0805d-71a4-41e2-aaab-...‌ group, since it may be something specific to that environment...

[ericwerth]

Great thought  @tdelillo .  I pinged them as well!

[scottdennis]

Hi  @eileenliang_cun ,

I'm curious as to whether you submitted a support case for this?  Instructure support does work cases from FFT.  My guess is that this email address was already associated with a user account that has obviously corrupt data associated with it.  Support should be able to delete or clean up the student account.

[eileenliang_cun]

Hi  @scottdennis , That is a great idea. I just submitted a ticket. Hope to hear back from them soon. Will keep ya'll posted. Thanks!

[ewest]

Hello Eileen,

Do users in your Canvas environment have a SIS ID?

I'm curious to see if they do, and that if you attempt to add this user to a course based off of their SIS ID, rather than email, that you'll perhaps get a different result.

Evan

[scottdennis]

Hi Evan,

That is a good thought.  Free for Teachers is a regular production instance of Canvas and so as such it would be possible for someone with admin access to have created the users that are students in Eileen's course so that they had populated SID fields.  However, this is not what happened.  I just spot checked the user accounts in this course roster and see a few with regular first and last names in the Display Name field but with the long number strings in the Sortable Name and Full Name fields.  

 @eileenliang_cun  I could just go in and manually fix those accounts if you like?

[eileenliang_cun]

Hi  @scottdennis ,

Sure that would be SO HELPFUL. Is there anyway you could also let me know the steps for doing this (if this is something as a Teacher I can do) so I can do this in the future myself?

Thank you!!!

[tara2]

I am having this issue with a student. They were able to access the course and complete the first Module, but they are now being denied access to the course moving forward.

They are still able to access Canvas messages being forwarded to their email, and when they reply it goes to Canvas inbox...

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello  @eileenliang_cun ...

I have been reviewing older questions here in the Canvas Community, and I stumbled upon your question.  I wanted to check in with you because I noticed that there hasn't been any new activity in this topic since February 15, 2018.  In looking through this discussion topic, it looks as though you may have gotten some support from both Canvas Support and  @scottdennis ‌ from Instructure.  Were you able to get this issue resolved?  Are there any other questions you have as it relates to your original question?  If you could please come back to this thread to provide an update for us, that would be helpful.  Also, if you feel that one of the above replies has ultimately helped to answer your question, please go ahead and mark that person's response as "Correct".  But, by all means, if you have additional questions about this topic, please let us know that as well.  For now, I am going to mark your question as "Assumed Answered", but that won't prevent you or others from posting additional questions and/or comments below that are related to this topic.  I hope that's okay with you, Eileen.  Looking forward to hearing back from you soon.

[lph]

I have run into this several times. The numbers are for the Google Login. 

After the student logs into the site, have them go to Account >> Settings >> Edit Settings (right sidebar) then they can correct their Full Name, Display Name, Sortable Name.

Next, have them go to Contact Method and choose the Email tab. Enter the email and check the box for the email login. 

Next, have them check the box for change password. Make sure they record their password and keep it in their wallet 

Save the settings and have the kid verify the login via email.