Home » How-To » Brightspace by D2L » Common Brightspace Issues

Below are the most common Brightspace issues reported by students.

Can’t see your course?

  • Two conditions must be met for you to be able to see a course in which you are registered:
    • The course must have started. For Regular Studies, this will be the first day of the semester. For Continuing Studies courses, this will be the first day of classes.
    • Your course must be activated by your instructor. If the course has started, and you cannot see it in Brightspace, please contact your instructor first and ask them to make sure they have set the course to Active.
  • Please note that it can take up to 24 hours after a new registration for a Brightspace course to become available to students. If it has been 24 hours and you still cannot see your course, please contact your instructor.
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Need help with a specific course?

Always contact your instructor first with issues regarding a specific course, for example:

  • You cannot see your course (please remember that courses are not available to students until the first day of the semester and/or up to 24 hours after registration)
  • Course content
  • Due dates
  • Availability of grades
  • Quizzes
  • Assignments
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Having login or technical problems?

You can access your Brightspace courses by logging in to the Langara website. If the myLangara portal is inaccessible you can access Brightspace directly at https://d2l.langara.ca, using your Computer User ID and password. (If you don’t know your on-campus, Computer User ID, click here on this link for instructions on looking it up.)

For all urgent student technical issues contact IT Services immediately.

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Which browsers are supported in Brightspace?

Click here to see Brightspace’s current list of supported browsers and browser versions.

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Can’t see video/audio in Brightspace?

Security Settings

Security settings in internet browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Edge may not allow media display within Brightspace courses, iWeb and CourseWeb sites. Here are some suggestions to help resolve problems:

In Mozilla Firefox:

If content will not display, look for a small shield icon on the left side of the address bar. Click that shield, select the more actions arrow, and then select “Disable Protection on this page” to display the content.

Firefox security warning
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In Safari:

Generally, Safari will not prevent content from displaying. If you are having trouble loading or displaying media in Safari, try enabling cookies.

If you are running the Safari browser, you may see an error when trying to access My Tools > My Media. Try changing the following settings in your browser’s Privacy settings: uncheck “Prevent cross-site tracking” and “Block all cookies.”

Safari privacy settings

 

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In Google Chrome:

If content will not display, look for a small shield icon on the right side of the address bar. Click that shield and then select “Load unsafe script” to display the content.

Chrome security warning box
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3rd-party Cookies

Users may sometimes see an error message when accessing My Media, particularly when accessing it via My Tools > My Media in Brightspace. The message typically reads something like: “It seems your browser is blocking 3rd party session cookies which are required for the Kaltura application. To resolve this issue, please update your settings to allow 3rd party cookies.”

Resolve the 3rd-party cookies issue in Brightspace.

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MathJax is displaying incorrectly for my assistive technology

An ongoing issue (under investigation by D2L) is causing MathJax mathematical equations to display incorrectly under some circumstances.

When accessing a quiz in Brightspace that contains math (LaTeX or MathML), activating the accessibility features by right-click on a math object will cause the Mathjax Javascript plugin to stop working when you navigate to another page. This is only resolved by clearing cookies for d2l.langara.ca.

Here is an example of a quiz with math:

Brightspace quiz tool showing a math question










Right-clicking the math object opens the Mathjax menu:

Mathjax menu open with the accessibility menu open and activate highlighted










Activating accessibility allows for assistive technology users to engage with math:

Mathjax keyboard explorer open










However, when you navigate to a new page that contains math, the Mathjax plugin fails to load:

Brightspace quiz tool showing another math question, showing the mathjax engine not working










Cookies must be reset for the Mathjax plugin to load.

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Tips for Writing Online Exams

See tips for writing Online Exams.

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