Disappearing Calendar Events - Has Anyone Experienced This?

[TJBB_ICR]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone might have encountered this issue and can shed some light on it.

We’ve had a strange issue with a series of calendar events in Canvas for one of our modules. The series of events has been working fine, but today’s specific event has mysteriously disappeared from the calendar. The series continues as expected after today’s date, and all the other content (assignments, tasks, etc.) seems unaffected.

Here’s a summary of the situation:

• The event for today was definitely there this morning because it was displayed on a classroom screen for students to use during scheduling.
• Around midday, it vanished from the calendar without any apparent reason.
• No notifications of the event being deleted were received (we usually get these if something is removed).
• There are no conflicting events, deadlines, or quiz submissions that overlap with the missing calendar entry.
• None of the lecturers or admins made changes to the content or the calendar.

I’ve checked our Canvas settings and the event log, but I can’t find any explanation for why this might have happened.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues with calendar events disappearing? If so, do you know what might cause this or how to prevent it in the future?

Thanks in advance for any insights you can share!

[dbrace]

Hi @TJBB_ICR,

I have not had this happen but I have a way to help you try to gather more data/information:

1. does the event still exist in beta or test?
2. if the event exists there, are you able to find the link for the calendar event? (the ID/link would look something like https://<beta_canvas_instance/courses/XXXXX/calendar_events/YYYYY)
3. if you format the link so that it is https://<prod_canvas_instance/api/v1/calendar_events/YYYYY you can see the API version of the details of event from inside your web browser

When looking at the API version of the event, there are two items to take note of:

1. workflow_state <--- will most likely appear as either "active" or "deleted"
2. updated_at <--- this will show when the event was last updated (including the date and time of when it was deleted, if it was deleted)

I routinely use https://www.timestamp-converter.com to convert ISO 8601 to something that is easier to understand.

To the best of my knowledge, it is not possible to restore/undelete a deleted event but this should provide you with more data/information as you research what happened.

-Doug

[TJBB_ICR]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. The event exists in test, but not in beta. The hyperlink for test is in the format of:

https://institutition.test.instructure.cohttps://icr.test.instructure.com/courses/XXX/calendar_event...

I don't get anywhere searching the relevant API. 

Do you have any other suggestions? 

BW,

TB

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @TJBB_ICR,

I think you are not using the correct link to view from the API.

After finding the calendar event and its ID from your institution's test environment, please try formatting the URL in production as:

https://YOUR_INSTITUTION.instructure.com/api/v1/calendar_events/CALENDAR_EVENT_ID

If that link does work for you, you should see information for created_at, updated_at, and workflow_state. You would then be able to convert the updated_at to a date that is easier for you to understand (using something like https://www.timestamp-converter.com), and then determine who (for example, an admin or an instructor or other person with access to the course) deleted it but you would need to check the "Page Views" for those other possible people.

If that does not work for you, then the calendar event is lost and finding out what happened will not be possible (at least not in a way that I know of).

-Doug