Common Blackboard Problems and Their Solutions

A number of issues in Blackboard have workarounds described below. You may also wish to check the section on browser-related issues if you don't see your problem here.

• The Virtual Classroom seems to load, but then logs me off.
• I can't see the last student in my Grade Center.
• My student is having trouble submitting (uploading) an assignment.
• I'm having trouble submitting a paper via SafeAssign's Direct Submit tab.

The Virtual Classroom seems to load, but then logs me off.

The solution for this problem is to force the browser to prompt you to accept the certificate to trust the publisher. Close the Virtual Classroom window (if it didn't close itself), then click the link on the "Launching Virtual Classroom" page that says "Click here for an accessible version." Wait for the message that asks you if you want to accept content from the publisher, and click "Yes." If you see a second message asking if you want to trust the certificate, also answer "Yes."

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I can't see the last student in my Grade Center.

You can't seen the last student in your class, and if you re-order the Grade Center in reverse alphabetical order, you can't see the first student (who should now be at the bottom). 

Fix no. 1:  This problem may be happening if the text size is too large. Go to the View menu of your browser, find the Zoom or Text Size option, and make the text smaller. You may need to reload the Grade Center for this change to go into effect.

Fix no. 2:  The problem could also be related to the scroll bar setting in Windows. This can be fixed by changing the Windows XP scroll bar size back to 20 or smaller.

Here is how to change the scroll bar setting in Windows XP:

1. Open the Windows Control Panel, Display Properties
2. Click the Appearance tab
3. Click the Advanced button
4. Select "Scrollbar" from the Item: drop-down list and change the size to < 20 (the default is 17)

For Windows 7:

1.  Go to Control Panel
2.  Select (Appearance and) Personalization
3.  In top right-hand search box, type "windows color"
4.  It will bring up Personalization and a list.  Select "Change window colors and metrics".
5.  Click on the Item Dropdown (default says Desktop) and select "Scrollbar" and change to a value less than 20.

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My student is having trouble submitting (uploading) an assignment.

You student attempts to submit an assignment and receives an error message with a long error id number and a message telling you to contact the System Administrator. This is probably caused by the name of the file containing some character other than letters, numbers, underscores or hyphens. Ask the student to rename the file with a shorter name with no special characters (no commas, extra periods, pound signs (#) or other non-letter, non-numeric characters). If this does not work, then empty the browser cache (Internet Explorer: Tools, Delete Browsing History, delete temporary internet files; or Firefox: Tools, Clear Private Data, make sure Cache is checked) and submit the file again.

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I'm having trouble submitting a paper via SafeAssign's Direct Submit tab.

You are attempting to submit a paper to be checked and receive an error message stating that you are not logged on. This seems to affect Macintosh users and the solution here is to "enable third-party cookies." How to do this depends on your system and which browser you use:

If you are using Firefox, then it's Preferences, click the Privacy tab, check Accept Cookies from Sites and keep until they expire.
If you are using Safari, then it's Preferences, click the Security tab, and check Accept Cookies -- Always.
And if you are using a Windows computer, it doesn't hurt to check the cookies as well:
Firefox: Tools -- Options, Privacy tab, check Accept third-party cookies, keep until they epire.
Internet Explorer: Tools -- Internet Options, Privacy tab, set the slider bar to Medium High.

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