User Guide: Known Issue where enrolled staff and students are not allowed to access courses.
We are seeing an issue with staff and student correctly enrolled on Blackboard but unable to access the course and/or certain content on a Blackboard Ultra course.
This issue is more common with users on Macbooks and iPhones as well as those using the Safari browser.
Troubleshooting
If you are experiencing this issue please try the following:
Use Chrome or Firefox browsers
We recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox to access Blackboard on your device.
Enable third-party / cross-site tracking cookies
Cookies are small files stored by websites on your computer. They make your online experience easier by saving browsing information.
Sites use cookies to:
- give you locally relevant content,
- keep you signed in,
- remember your site preferences.
For more information, see this Knowledgebase guide about enabling cookies.
Allow Pop-Ups
Blackboard Ultra sometimes opens content in new windows or frames. If the popup blocker is enabled this may prevent these windows from opening, the platform may display “You do not have permission to access this content” even if you are correctly enrolled.
Pop Ups can usually be managed in a similar area to cookies in the settings area of your preferred browser. You can allow all pop-ups or some browsers allow you to select a single URL e.g. blackboard.soton.ac.uk and allow pop-ups only for this website.
For more information on managing pop-ups in your browser, see the following guides: Firefox Pop-up Settings. Edge Pop-up Settings. Chrome Pop-up Settings.
Clear Cache and Cookies
You may need to clear cache and cookies from your browser before accessing Blackboard.
For more information, see this Knowledgebase guide about clearing cache and cookies.
Contact Serviceline
If you are still experiencing issues accessing Blackboard courses and you have confirmed that you should have access e.g. you are enrolled as staff or student on a Blackboard course. Then raise a ticket with Serviceline including the following information:
- Course ID of the Blackboard Course you were trying to access (found on the Course list page e.g. ABCD1234-12345-25-26).
- What you were doing when you saw the error code? E.g. accessing the course from the course list page or accessing a particular piece of course content.
- Screenshots of the error. You should also Request Log Code, if shown, and copy and paste that into your ticket.
- A screen recording is also helpful if this is happening regularly.