Known Issues
Known customer issues with OWL are listed below. While we are working on a permanent fix, a current known issue may have a workaround available. Known issues that have been resolved are listed further down with the date each fix was released.
Current Known Issues
Tool | Affected Roles | Issue | Workarounds |
---|---|---|---|
Assignments |
All roles |
When an instructor releases a submission with grades or feedback back to students for an assignment with multiple resubmissions allowed, the status will show "Returned - Pending Resubmission" rather than just "Returned" after the resubmission deadline. |
The submission has been returned successfully and is not pending. This is just a display issue. |
Assignments |
Instructors, other site maintainers |
Students are unable to peer review other submissions if any submissions have been submitted by the instructor on behalf of a student. |
Avoid submitting on behalf of any students for peer review assignments. |
Tests & Quizzes |
Instructors, other site maintainers |
Some functions ("sign", "factorial", and "log") in the Calculated Question type changed in May 2021. These need to be updated in formulas to the new notation of "sgn", "!", and "log10", respectively. Built-in constants like "pi" must be in lowercase. |
Update questions using the old functions ("sign", "factorial", and "log") with the new notation of "sgn", "!", and "log10", respectively. Built-in constants like "pi" must be in lowercase. Questions in questions pools will also need to be updated. |
Assignments |
Instructors, other site maintainer roles |
When re-uploading feedback files via the bulk uploader after an initial upload, the files will show multiple times in the feedback area |
Ensure that you have finished your grading before uploading your grades and feedback. |
-- |
All roles |
If you are sending an email to your instructor or someone from your class using a contact from your email address book, the display name of the recipient (in the "To" field) might be different than the recipient's actual email address. Therefore, you might send the message to an unchecked email address. |
Always check the full email address of anyone you are emailing to ensure your message gets to the correct destination. |
-- |
All roles |
If you reply to an email originally sent to you by OWL, the display name of the recipient (in the "To" field) might be different than the recipient's actual email address. Therefore, you might send the message to an unchecked email address. |
Always check the full email address of anyone you are emailing to ensure your message gets to the correct destination. |
Resolved Issues
Tool | Issue | Status |
---|---|---|
Site Info |
Attempting to remove a member from a group with more members than can appear on your screen won't remove the member from the list when the "Save Group" button is off the screen. |
Resolved - October 2023 |
Lessons |
The Reorder button in Lessons does not work when the module contains an embedded video. |
Resolved - October 2023 |
HTML Editor |
When a video (uploaded to OWL) is embedded on a page using the HTML Editor, the editor's buttons are disabled when you attempt to edit that page again. |
Resolved - October 2023 |
Tests & Quizzes |
Exporting an assessment as "" or "Content Packaging" results in an empty or broken export file. |
Resolved - July 2023 |
Lessons |
Subpages with these certain characters cause a "HTTP Status 400" error when clicked from the Lessons subpage menu in the left tool menu: [ ] \ | |
Resolved - July 2023 |
Preferences |
Sites starred across the top and all sites in the Sites drawer disappear when hiding more than 1000 sites using Preferences. |
Resolved - January 2022 |
Lessons |
Content embedded by students on a Student Content page prior to May 2nd, 2021 does not appear to others in the site. |
Resolved - January 2022 |
Lessons |
The "Transparent (no borders)" colour scheme in Column Properties does not remove the borders. |
Resolved - January 2022 |
Gradebook |
Large gradebooks containing lots of cells of students and columns can take a while to load. |
Resolved - January 2022 |
Collaborate Ultra |
When using Mac OS "Big Sur" 11.0 or "Catalina" 10.15 and Safari 14 with Collaborate Ultra the audio a user hears is breaking up or cracking. |
No longer available - July 2021 |
Collaborate Ultra |
Some users have reported receiving an error when attempting to join Blackboard Collaborate Ultra sessions using a Chromebook. |
No longer available - July 2021 |
Site Info |
The "Add new group" button remains disabled when creating new groups. |
Resolved by clearing browser cache - May 2021 |
Lessons |
Recent changes to Lessons may require updates to custom CSS (stylesheets). |
Updates provided in May 2021 |
Lessons |
Recent changes to Lessons require updates to the styles for WTS's OWL Basic Template and OWL Advanced Template. |
Updates provided in May 2021 |
Lessons |
Students receive a 403 error when trying to access content created through the rich text editor When lessons or subpages are created and content is added to them, a folder is automatically created in resources. The hide setting for these folders are automatically set to "Hide this folder and its contents" The file can still be accessed by students when the file is added to the lesson through the lesson tool's "Add content link" or "embed content" options. However, when added through the rich text editor or via a direct link to the file, the students will receive this error |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Tests & Quizzes |
When grading calculated questions in Question view, student responses will display as being marked incorrectly. This is a display issue only. Students still receive the correct number of points. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Tests & Quizzes |
The "Student Audio Response" question type does not work for students when the quiz is accessed using the published assessment URL. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Tests & Quizzes |
When switching between "Highest Submission" and "All Submissions" while grading question responses, grades entered will appear to apply to students in the wrong order after the switch. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Tests & Quizzes |
When switching between groups while grading question responses, grades entered will appear to apply to any subsequent group selected. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Sign-up |
When creating a meeting, the "Meeting Coordinators" option shows the HTML code for a space character (" ") in front of coordinators' names. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Lessons |
With the Inline Questions tool in Lessons, if the answers in your question are long, clicking "Show Poll" will create overlap in the text as the frame does not expand to accommodate the text enough |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Lessons |
Videos are downloaded on page load. This is a known issue on Chrome. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Lessons |
Page icons appear as boxes. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Gradebook |
When working in a Gradebook that uses categories, dragging items to change their order does not save in the new order. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Assignments |
Students cannot resubmit to an anonymous assignment (after they have made an initial submission). |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Assignments |
When uploading an archive file (using the "Bulk Upload" option) to an assignment using Turnitin, the default pre-created inline submission text file (for text normally entered into the text editor on the submission page) is not submitted to Turnitin. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Assignments |
Creating an assignment and then editing that assignment to turn it into a group-submission assignment, or creating a group-submission assignment and then editing that assignment to turn it into an individual assignment may cause unintentional and irreversible issues. |
Resolved - May 2021 |
Zoom |
Zoom is presenting a warning regarding Approved Domains in the LTI Pro configuration. |
Resolved - September 2020 |
Statistics |
Some student activity events do not appear for the week of May 2nd-8th, 2020. |
Students were not affected by this issue when submitting assignments or quizzes, or interacting with OWL in general. Their activity will still appear in those tools. The issue only affected the reporting of events in Statistics, which Instructors should consider when reviewing the Statistics reports for that week. |
Statistics |
Any graphs in Statistics just spin and never display |
Resolved - August 2019 |
Gradebook |
Viewing the statistics for a particular Gradebook item results in a blank page. |
Resolved - August 2019 |
Tests & Quizzes |
Setting a question's point value to be worth more than 999 points will cause grading issues. |
Resolved - July 2019 |
Gradebook |
Setting dates for items/columns in the Gradebook changes the date to another date when using non-US English. |
Resolved - July 2019 |
Email Archive |
Email Archive doesn't display attachments sent to the site's email archive address from Outlook. |
Resolved - January 2019 |
Lessons |
The "Add Question" option does not always record student answers. |
Resolved - May 2018 |
Gradebook |
Instructors and Grade Admins do not see the "Submit" and "Approve" buttons for their sections when they are not enrolled in the first section listed on the Final Grades page of a cross-listed course site. |
Resolved - May 2018 |
Gradebook |
Changes to the grade submission revision PDF file (linked from the Final Grades page) do not show in bold text. |
Resolved - May 2018 |
Forums |
Forum discussions do not wrap on mobile devices |
Resolved - December 2017 |
Lessons |
Embedded HTML modules and pages do not load content in Lessons |
Resolved - October 2017 |