From around 8 am today, a global Domain Name Server issue disrupted access to Blackboard (and linked) services for some users, while others were unaffected. Whether or not you were affected was due to the route taken through the Internet from your computer to the Blackboard servers. Blackboard put a fix in place soon after the incident was observed, but due to the nature of the issue, this has taken some time to propagate to all users. Blackboard has informed us that a normal service should be restored for all users by 5 pm today.
Author: Hanrahan Highland
[Closed] Intermittent Blackboard access disruption
Access to Blackboard (and linked) services is currently experiencing some intermittent disruption, due to a global DNS issue. Blackboard is investigating the issue – updates can be found on its status page.
If you are having access issues, using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or restarting your router (if you have access to it) may help.
[Resolved] Students not receiving submission receipts (and other Blackboard issues)
Between around 12.00 and 1.15 today, a global Domain Name Server issue affected the blackboard.com domain, meaning that some services that need to access this domain were unable to. These included accessing Turnitin and Qwickly Attendance through Blackboard, and there was also a delay in submission receipts arriving (due to domain checks in mail servers). This issue has now been resolved, and all services should be working normally.
Access to the University’s Blackboard environment was unaffected.
Changes to sender address used for Blackboard announcement emails
A change has occurred to the address that announcement emails in Blackboard are sent from. Previously, email announcements were sent from “no-reply@bristol.ac.uk <donotreply@blackboard.com>”. This has changed to include the email address of the announcement creator, eg “an.other@bristol.ac.uk <no-reply@bristol.ac.uk>”. If you have any email filters set up to detect these emails, they may need to be updated.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this change.
[Resolved] Blackboard Mobile App Access Issue
The issue with accessing Blackboard via the mobile app has been fixed by Blackboard.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
[Closed] Blackboard Mobile App Access Issue
We have been informed that there is currently an issue with users accessing Blackboard via the mobile app. When searching for a university, in order to sign in, you will see the following message: “There seems to be an issue on our side. Please try again later.” Blackboard are urgently working to restore access.
You can still access Blackboard on a mobile device by using a web browser.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
[Closed] Some people cannot access Blackboard
We are aware that a small number of people are getting an error message when they try to access Blackboard, such as “This site can’t be reached”. We are investigating the issue with the assistance of IT Services and Blackboard, and will update this blog when we have further information. In the meantime, anyone who is affected by this may be able to restore access by using the University’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) or the Windows Virtual Desktop.
The issue appears to originate in BT’s nameservers, so only people using BT as their Internet Service Provider should be affected.
[Resolved] ‘My Marks’ via Blackboard home page unavailable
A recent Blackboard update has fixed the issue with the ‘My Marks’ tool, and it can now be accessed via the home page or the user menu at top right again. Marks and feedback in Blackboard can also be accessed via ‘My Grades and Feedback’ in the ‘Assessment, submission and feedback’ area.
[Resolved] MathType Equation rendering issue in Blackboard text editor
An update to Blackboard today has resolved the issue with equations not displaying properly in some browsers. If you still find that some equations are not displaying correctly for you, please clear the cache of images and downloaded files in your web browser (using, for example, these instructions).
[Resolved] Some Blackboard pages displaying incorrectly
An issue was identified at around 5 pm on Friday where, for some people, Blackboard pages were not displaying properly in their web browser. The issue was reported to Blackboard, who took steps that fixed the issue on Saturday morning. Anyone who is still experiencing this issue should clear the cache in their web browser (using, for example, these instructions), which will allow the pages to display correctly again.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this issue. If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.