Blackboard Access

November 12, 2020 7:49 a.m.
Outage category: 
myMason, Blackboard
Location: 
All Campuses
Status: 
Closed
Resolved alert: 
08/20/2020 10:45 pm

Users could not access the area in Blackboard that displays their list of courses.

Initial symptoms: 

Users contacted Support Center

Duration: 
08/20/2020 9:52 pm - 08/20/2020 10:45 pm
Impact to Mason: 

Users could not access Blackboard courses.

Affected Services: 
Blackboard Courses
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
Cause: 

The issue was found to be a bug in Learn. A step in the upgrade process that modifies the database was changing the availability of the Course List module. Under normal circumstances, this alone would not have impacted users. However, if the Learn upgrade fails while that database step is in progress, it can cause the unavailable setting to persist, making the module unavailable to users.

Resolution: 

This bug has been resolved in release 3900.2 that will be applied to GMU’s production environment on 12/3/20. The fix is that the upgrade step that modifies the database will no longer modify the availability of the Course List module.

Prevention: 

Bug will fix issue permanently

STATISTICS
Service Team: 
Online Learning Resources