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Blackboard Known Issues

Discussion Board “Message” box in IE7

If you try to start a new thread or reply to one in the discussion board, and the “Message” box is grayed out or won’t let you type in it:

  1. Look near the top of your screen, near the “Murray State E-Study Center” logo. Likely, there is a yellow bar that says “This website wants to run the following add-on: ‘Microsoft ® Dynamic HTML Editing Control’ from ‘Microsoft Corporation’. If you trust the website and the add-on and want to allow it to run, click here…”
  2. Click on the bar (line of text), and select “Run ActiveX Control.”
Install add-on in IE7

Blackboard and Windows Vista

At this time, the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system has not yet been certified or deemed to be compatible with Blackboard.

The Visual Text Box Editor controls do not function correctly in Internet Explorer 7 because they require a component not available in Windows Vista. Users on Release 7.0 and Release 6, Application Pack 3 should turn off the Visual Text Box Editor in their personal preferences or use Firefox 2.0.

Office 2007 - Saving documents for earlier versions of Office

If you are running Microsoft Office 2007, please be aware that the default file formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .accdb) are incompatible with Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier versions. (This is not a problem with Blackboard, but will make it difficult for anyone opening files retrieved out of Blackboard who do not have Office 2007.) To set your Office 2007 programs to default to a compatible format, please review the instructions at Office 2007 - Saving documents for earlier versions of Office.

Printing a document within Blackboard using IE6 or 7

You cannot print a document directly from Blackboard if it opens inside in the content frame area. To print the document:

  1. Right-click on the document link and click “Save Target As” to save it to your computer, or click on the link and tell it to “Save”.
  2. Open the document from the directory where you saved it.

Additional Notes and System Requirements

IMPORTANT: Please review ALL issues related to tests before taking or assigning a test in Blackboard.

Tests

Clicking the Submit button more than once (double click):

Students are likely to have problems if they double click to take a test, or when they double click the "Submit" or "Save" button. This may result in error messages which lock the student out of the assessment, or cause the test not to be saved. Please inform your students about this issue before assigning a Blackboard test. Students should be told NOT to click on the Submit or Save button more than once. The Save button is a new Bb feature. It allows a student to save answered questions when the test is presented all-at-once. Presumably, if a student clicks Save but then experiences a problem that causes the test to become "locked" the answered questions will be saved. The instructor can view the answered questions even though the test was not completed.

Pop-up Blockers:

Pop-up blocker software is bundled with many programs including Windows XP Service Pack 2, Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, and Norton Internet Security. Students should disable their pop-blockers when using Blackboard for taking tests or using the Virtual Classroom

Students should disable pop-up blockers or instruct the pop-up blocker to "Always allow pop-ups from this site."

Pop-up blockers are very likely to cause test problems. Symptoms include not being able to click on the exam link or encountering problems when an exam is submitted. Problems are more likely to occur when the instructor selects the option to launch Blackboard tests in an External Window.

"One Question at a Time" presentation mode:

The most significant number of reported problems seems to occur with tests that have been set to "One Question at a Time" (pressing "Enter" rather than "next" may cause a problem"). We recommend that instructors NOT select the "one question at a time" test presentation mode when setting their test options.

Hopefully this problem will be corrected in future versions of Blackboard.

Copied Tests:

Instructors should carefully check the answers to tests that have been copied from earlier versions of Blackboard. We have received reports that some answers have been corrupted.

If the timer doesn't appear:

If the timer doesn't appear in the lower left-hand corner of the browser's status bar, you will need to make some changes to the browser settings.

Internet Explorer version 7 (IE7)

  1. Tools > Internet Options > Security tab > Internet > Custom Levels
  2. Scroll down (near the bottom) and enable "Allow status bar updates via script."
  3. You may need to restart your browser.

Firefox 1.x

  1. Tools > Options > Web Features
  2. Check "enable Java"
  3. Check "enable JavaScript"
  4. Click Advanced...
  5. Check "change status bar text"
  6. You may need to restart your browser.

Firefox 2.x

  1. Tools > Options > Content
  2. Check "enable Java"
  3. Check "enable JavaScript"
  4. Click Advanced...
  5. Check "Change status bar text"
  6. You may need to restart your browser.

 

Communications

E-mail:

Bad email addresses, such as ones that include special characters or spaces in the email address field, will cause the email not to be sent to that particular user(s). The remainder recipients will receive the email.

Do not send E-mail through Blackboard without content in the subject line. Leaving the subject line blank may prohibit delivery.

File Names:

Blackboard WILL NOT recognize files or email addresses with special characters such as # & % $, etc. We recommend using only alpha-numeric file names and in Blackboard in general.

 

General

Pop Up Blockers and Cookies:

The Blackboard Virtual Classroom may not work properly if you have pop-up blocker software installed in your browser and if cookies are NOT enabled.

Spyware:

Regularly check for Spyware. Spyware can create unpredictable problems with logging in, using tests, using the Virtual Classroom and more.

Spyware is responsible for most of the problems that we see with the Virtual Classroom. Checking for Spyware requires downloading a program and running it. However there are excellent programs for removing it that are free for personal use. The entire process can be done in a small amount of time. See RacerNet under the Tech Support Tab for more information about Spyware.

Windows Updates:

Failure to keep Windows computers updated with Microsoft Windows Updates can and will create many problems with the Virtual Classroom and other Blackboard features.

Internet Accelerator:

We have heard reports of problems with users using Internet accelerators. If you have an Internet accelerator operating on your computer, you may need to disable it while uploading documents to Blackboard, taking tests or using the Virtual Classroom.

Java:

Correct Java Updates must be installed to use Chat.

Mac Users:

Macintosh users with systems earlier than OS X cannot use the full Virtual Classroom. They will need to use the "Lightweight Chat" interface. Instructors using the full Virtual Classroom need to be aware that some Macintosh users will not be able to see the whiteboard.

RealDownload:

A RealDownload error message appears when someone tries to open a Word or PDF file link from a webpage (including Blackboard). Either uninstall RealDownload or change its settings to disable RealDownload when trying to open Word or PDF files, or other file types. Instructions are available at http://service.real.com/help/faq/top5/rd.html

Cookies must be enabled:

Blackboard requires that cookies be enabled for many features to work properly

Web Browsers:

The WYSIWYG editor is only available with Windows Internet Explorer. Additionally, we do not recommend that users paste from Word into a WYSIWYG text area box as unpredictable fonts and spacing may result.