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Computer and Browser Troubleshooting Tips

First time users to Blackboard, or users that have recently bought a new computer:

Please go through the Blackboard Tune-Up page on your home computer. The tune-up page can be found at http://www.webct.com/tuneup. You will be asked a few questions and then sent to an "optimizing your browser" screen. Please complete each of the six steps entirely. Below you will see an area about special search bars. Please complete the following steps on your computer prior to using Blackboard.

Are you experiencing any of the following issues? If so, please follow the three steps below in the order they appear.

  • Blackboard pages not displaying completely or properly
  • Error messages such as "error: session running" or "error on page"
  • Getting sent back to the your Blackboard class homepage or the campus selection page when trying to take a quiz or assignment
  • Icons are not functioning properly, e.g. nothing happens when you click on an icon or you go to the wrong page when you click on an icon
  • You are getting a red time out error when you have not had 60 consecutive minutes of inactivity on the system (Blackboard has a 60 minute time out limit)

STEP 1. SPECIAL SEARCH BARS

Do you have any special search bars installed on your home computer? These would appear in your browser window underneath the toolbar. Some popular toolbars are for Google, Yahoo Companion, AltaVista, or mySearch. All of toolbars these will interfere with Blackboard and processes will not run correctly. If you are unsure if one of these toolbars is present, go to your browser's View menu. Select Toolbars and a pop out box will appear. In the top section only Standard buttons, Address bar, and Links should appear. If anything other than these three are listed then you most likely have a special search bar. If you have any of these special search bars, you will need to delete them in order to use Blackboard.

To uninstall a special search bar, go to the start menu of your computer > control panel > add/remove programs.

After you remove the search bar(s), try using Blackboard again and see if it is working correctly. If you are still having problems, please continue to step 2.


2. BROWSER TUNEUP PAGE

The browser tuneup page is located at http://www.webct.com/tuneup. Complete the WebCT tuneup on the computer on which you are having trouble using Blackboard. It will ask you a few questions and then take you to an "optimizing your browser" screen. Please complete each of the six steps entirely. Once you do these please try using Blackboard again and see how it is working. If no improvement is seen after this please proceed to the next suggestion. If Blackboard is still not working correctly, please procede to step 3.


3. UNINSTALLING AND REINSTALLING JAVA

Follow these steps to ensure that you are running the correct version of Java.

  1. From your start menu go to control panel > add/remove programs
  2. Remove all programs that mention Java in their titles
  3. Go to http://java.sun.com/products/archive/j2se/5.0_07/
  4. Under JRE 5.0 Update 7 (the second blue bar on the page, indicating the J2SE Runtime Environment), click Download JRE.
  5. Near the middle of the page, select the radio button indicating you accept the license agreement.
  6. Choose the appropriate download for your computer (most users will go to Windows Platform – J2SE™ Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 7 and choose the Online installation).
  7. Once this program (Sun Java) has been installed restart your computer and try Blackboard again.

Need more assistance with Blackboard? Contact the ITaP Customer Service Center.