Disappearing Graphics

[mfreedman3]

I have jpg images which display just fine, then for no apparent reason they disappear, only showing the file name.  Is this a bug? Am I doing something wrong?

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

 @mfreedman3 ‌, there are numerous variables that might account for this: where the images reside, how they were added to the item, where they appear within the course. Canvas Support would need to have a look within the course itself to determine why this might be occurring in each case, so if this is happening to you, please initiate a support case (How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor?‌) 

[jdick1]

I've had this happen before as well. When I contacted the Canvas Help Desk, they suggested I clear my cache and that did the trick.

[mfreedman3]

Thanks,

I was wondering if this was a Chrome issue as it was clean on a mobile

browser. Either way, this doesn't happen with other sites, so that may just

be a deflection.

I reloaded the graphics to clear it up.

On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 8:03 AM, jdick@andover.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>

[tamychapman]

This is dejavu. I was coming here to ask the same question. I experienced this as an instructor when students couldn't see images I'd put in quiz questions. Canvas Help told me to refresh the page, but students can't really do that in a quiz. So I had to stop putting images in quizzes. 

Now, I'm an admin and we're trying to put a standard home page in all our courses. I added the jpeg to Files and created a Page with the image on it for about 50 courses. They all looked fine on my computer, but then I learned that when the instructors opened the Page in their course the image wasn't displaying. 

What is another solution other than emptying the cache? You can't tell the whole campus to do this just so they can view the banner on the homepage. I mean, you can, but most won't know how.

[mfreedman3]

Right - clearing cache is only a stop gap. There has to be an issue here.  Anyone know how to ask Canvas to look at this?

stefaniesanders‌

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

 @mfreedman3 ‌, there are numerous variables that might account for this: where the images reside, how they were added to the item, where they appear within the course. Canvas Support would need to have a look within the course itself to determine why this might be occurring in each case, so if this is happening to you, please initiate a support case (How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor?‌) 

[andrew_sheppard]

This problem remains unsolved. It would be helpful if Instructure would assume responsibility for investigating and resolving this issue without placing the burden on its users. it's a wide-spread, easily replicable issue. Please work on this without tasking your users.  

[BrandonPrewitt]

I concur with this response. I consistently have this issue. With more and more classes transitioning to the online atmosphere, especially with many of them being asynchronous, it is vital to the learning environment that we engage all types of learners in different ways. Images are important to many different disciplines and making connections for learning. I do not see a reason that this cannot be resolved. With the online culture we have now created due to COVID, this should be a simple process that seems to be overlooked. I have read through the feeds that go back for a few years now, and the problem still persists. I attached a screen shot of an assignment with images in the description that I posted this past Sunday. The images where there when I published the page, they were there the following day, and now have disappeared at some point over the week. Even though to Instructure this may seem like a small issue, to instructors, this is a big issue that needs to be resolved. We cannot effectively employ our pedagogy if we do not have all the tools available, or they do not work properly.

[MattHanes]

I've had the images not appear before. It's a very intermittent problem. But if everyone can't see the same image, I would suspect that maybe the image is linked to somewhere those users don't have access. I've had content specialists copy and paste content from page into a different course. The picture works for the content specialist because they have access to both courses, but the teacher doesn't have access to that first course. So the teacher sees a bad image link. The content specialist never knew anything was wrong until someone told them the images weren't working.

[mfreedman3]

This happened to me on a canvas.net course in January, and the Canvas.net people said it was operator error. 

[mfreedman3]

I always put all images in my class's file section, so don't have this

angle on the problem.

On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 5:19 AM, crafte@easternflorida.edu <

[tamychapman]

I'll add some more details. I was adding the same jpeg from the old course to the new course's Files. Then I was copying and pasting the html from the old course into the new course's Page. I thought it was working because it looked ok on my computer. From what others have said, I can understand how it might have worked because I had access to both locations, but it didn't work for the instructor who didn't have access to the course I copied from. Maybe that explains why when I was teaching my students couldn't see some of my images. They might have been copied from my other courses, which students didn't have access to. Just my latest working theory.

[dholton]

Run the Validate Links tool under Settings and it will find any broken images, files, or links in a course: How do I validate links in a course?  

Copy and paste won't work from course to course even if you uploaded the file or image to both courses because it generates a unique ID number for each file.

[Bobby2]

 @holtond1 I'm passing this little gem on. Thank you!

[wendy_fletcher]

Helpful if the images are actually missing or the file path is wrong, but there is a repeated issue with images that are in correct spot not showing , then reappearing later with no changes made. I've encouraged some of my students to refresh multiple times eg using F5 and this sometimes gets the missing images. 

[alyson_froehlic]

Image file location can definitely be an issue, but it is still the case that images occasionally don't display correctly even when they are located in an area the viewer has access to. This happens to me all of the time. On one visit the images don't display correctly and on the next visit they do.

The comment of clearing the cache is helpful, but I agree that that isn't always going to be a viable solution for many cases- students and faculty not aware that this is what they need to do, or even more importantly for students taking a quiz.

[wendy_fletcher]

Yes this is exactly what I am finding, images are correct,in correct spots, linked correctly,  still vanish sometimes then reappear later. ..

[s_carter]

Yes, we are having exactly the same issue. It does not seem to be a cache/refresh issue as on one page the images will (sometimes) not display properly, but on other pages the images will display perfectly - without refreshing. This is very frustrating.

[Bobby2]

And different people in the same course see images when others can't. 

[colleen_bergin1]

I think it is a cache issue, but again, teachers/students will not know to clear their cache.  I think this is something Canvas needs to work on fixing.

[Chris_Hofer]

We are experiencing broken images in our environment today.  Our logo isn't appearing the upper left corner, no images showing in global announcements we post to the Canvas Dashboard, no custom images we have uploaded for Course Cards on the Dashboard, no embedded images in course pages, etc.  I've reported this to Instructure tech support, and my case number is 03207052.

^Updated

^{One of our IT staff needed to whitelist some Amazon web servers that Cisco had recently tagged as malicious.  That has seemed to fix the issues we were experiencing earlier today.}

[tuk03990]

My team is also having this issue...fairly often! Images disappear, but refreshing them brings them back (sometimes after a few refreshes). Even if all new files are uploaded and fresh pages are made with those graphics, they still disappear. It's not the linking. Clearing the cache should not be the only answer to this. Why is this happening??? What is the real solution???

[ysmalls]

Hello,

This has happened to some of my teacher's also, sadly when reported to Canvas support I get the usual brush off and are told to clear cache which is a temporary solution because the images will "disappear" again for no reason or are told that they were not uploaded properly!

I have verified that the images were first uploaded either within files or the Images option and still images would "disappear".  Never got a real solution to the issue!

Glad to see it's not just "ME"!.

[mfreedman3]

I've opened a case for this issue from my account Practical Academics. Case # if you can use it is #

03211628

Michel

[mfreedman3]

Here is the response from L1 help desk.  Please let me know your experience with any/all of these and I will relay back to L1. 

Update your browser - updating your browser may fix any problems you have with Canvas, please see this guide on which browsers are supported by Canvas

Clear your browser history - Clearing your browser history, cookies and cache helps with accessing web pages which are causing you problems. Please refer to these guides, How to clear cache on PC or How to clear cache on MAC

Open Chrome in Incognito Window - Opening Chrome in Incognito Window will disable any Chrome Extensions/Plugins. This will help us identify if it is a browser related issue. 

Here is how to access an "Incognito Window":
https://screencast.com/t/TXHEVexXPHb

Try using a different PC - If you have access to a another PC or Mac, try viewing the Canvas page there and see if you get similar issues, if you do not get any issues, we can assume it may be an issue with your computer settings.

Check your Internet Connection -  If you are using wireless, try connecting to cable if you can.

Here is my reply:

Please see the thread in the community discussion referenced in the initial ticket.  Since there are so many folks experiencing this problem, I think you can eliminate browser, internet, and pc as sources of the problem.

What's next?

[tamychapman]

Yes, this is really a Canvas issue since it doesn't occur with all the other websites we all visit on the same browsers all day everyday. Thanks for trying. I wish Canvas cared more about fixing this.

[Chris_Hofer]

 @tuk03990 , ysmalls,  @mfreedman3 , and  @tamychapman ...

We had images that disappeared in our Canvas environment a couple days ago (see my above posting).  For us, this was not an issue on Instructure's end.  I chatted with their tech support people, and they could not replicate the issue on their end.  I ended up chatting with one of our IT people on campus, and he determined that Cisco was tagging some Amazon web servers as malicious.  So, he white-listed those servers, and we are back in business.  I'm not saying this is the case for your schools, but it might be worth checking out.

[mfreedman3]

So your images were externally linked? The images I am using are housed

within the Canvas course.

[Chris_Hofer]

Our images were housed in one of two spots (nothing externally linked)...depending on the situation:

1. At the course level (in course "Files") in Canvas and then embedded on Canvas pages.
2. At a user profile's level in Canvas.  I uploaded some images to my personal Canvas account, and then (since I'm an admin) I created a Global Announcement to display on the dashboard.  When embedding am image in a Global Announcement, I always choose from my personal image folder within my Canvas profile.

Hope this helps.

[ysmalls]

 @Chris_Hofer ,  

Thanks for the information which might come in handy if this continues next year.  I did not have this happen in a while but it has happened and I was not able to give my teachers a reason why that was happening.

[cclo]

FWIW, recently two of our faculty independently reported that their course images don't display properly in their latest version of Safari but the images display fine in other browsers or in PCs. Clearing cache does not solve the problem. One of them is able to fix the issue by going to the Develop Develop menu in the menu bar, disable and then renable images, then refresh the page. (See Use the Safari Develop menu <https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=link&apdid=sfri20948&viewlocale=en_US&bookId=El%20Capitan%20...>.) If you are seeing problems in Macs, perhaps give this a try?

[jal18]

I have been dealing with this issue for months. I would replace the images (housed inside the course under files) only to have it occur again and again. I had IT look into it; tried various browsers (with the most recent updates), cleared cache repeatedly but that only worked temporary. 

I found that Firefox is the only browser that consistently displays images. However,  this doesn't really solve the issue. Learners will use their preferential browser which means that images may not display properly thereby, reducing the quality of course and possibly damaging the relationship we are building with learners.

[wturgeon]

This is a helpful thread.  I found using a different browser helped but we cannot ask students to switch browsers or refresh their pages.  I hope this can be fixed.  

Wendy

[jbrown10]

Hi Michael,

You are not doing anything wrong. This has been an ongoing issue for the better part of 8 months. I think I first noticed it in December 2017, others noted it happened before then from memory.
there is a much more complete discussion with links to numerous other cases reporting the same issue that can be found: https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/20989-why-are-my-jpeg-images-disappearing 

For me currently, I notice the images disappearing some days however after navigating around canvas, doing some work, and not touching them, eventually, they pop back up. 
Clearing cache/cookies doesn't fix anything, it happens across multiple computers/browsers. 

Does anyone else find that images re-appear of their own accord after a few hours?

[MollyCaldera]

I was experiencing this issue today and yesterday as well. I switched to Chrome over Safari long ago because my images were appearing as broken images. It seemed to work for me. Then just recently I saw the images broken. It was intermittent though. So, for example, the page banner would indicate it was a broken link, then it would reappear for me with no issues. Very strange. 

I did just have a computer update, though. What are the odds we are all working on a Mac though? Probably not. 

The big takeaway from my observation is that the images did reappear. It was very strange.  

[mfreedman3]

Canvas tech support continues to maintain this is a cache issue. Here is the

updated comment and my reply.

Meghan, the thread includes examples and screenshots of disappearing

graphics.

Correct me if I am wrong, Clearing the cache means that all of my cookies

get cleared and I will have to re-login to all of my sites each time I do

this. A terrible inconvenience for me and all of my students. So much so

that I will not want to put images in my courses! Isn't there a better way?

On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 7:21 PM, caldera@sxu.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>

[valentinesking]

Molly, 

I just encountered a similar issue. I usually use Chrome and an image is broken in Chrome but fine in Firefox. Both browsers are up to date.

[kimberly_smith1]

This is an ongoing issue in Canvas - popping up for years now. Unfortunately, there has been no permanent fix so far. I haven't collected data on it, but it seems to me that the timing for when this issue emerges may be associated with New Releases? Here are just a few links to previous occurrences.

• Why are my jpeg images disappearing?!!! 
• Images embedded in Pages disappear/reappear at random? 
• Quiz images not displaying 
• Broken Images After Uploading 
• Images sometimes appearing as broken, sometimes not 

To get Canvas engineers to look at this (e.g. beyond L1 or L2 help), it seems important to communicate the scope of the recent emergence of the issue. The only way I know to do this is for those experiencing it to try and coordinate regarding Problem Report submissions. It is a hassle, but I have seen it work in the past....

Person A submits a Problem Report and then posts their case number to the most recent Community discussion on the issue. Then Person B includes Person A's case number in their own Problem Report submission, and follows up by posting their case number to the community, Then Person C includes case numbers from Person A and Person B in their Problem Report submission, and follows up by posting their case number, and so on.

[junyang8]

So, is there any solution to this issue so far? We have a faculty reporting image disappearing again from one of the pages in Canvas.  Thanks. 

[mfreedman3]

I've escalated to my CSM team:

Thanks, Quinn,  I want to reiterate two points:

1) Clearing cache, even if it works temporarily, is not a realistic solution. This impacts everyone and is an inconvenience. When you clear your cache as directed, your entire browsing history, cookies, and passwords are deleted. All users will then periodically have to re-sign into each of their websites.  A royal pain if not the extremely rare occurrence.  Very annoying if happens even occasionally.  Do you really want all Canvas uses to have to do this? 

2) This reflects poorly on Canvas. I know of no other SaaS application that asks its users to clear their cache on a regular basis or even occasionally. 

There has to be a better way to deal with this other than put the work on all of our customers.

Best,

Michael