Troubleshooting

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How do I get Canvas to see my changes to the configuration files?

If you are running a production setup, then you need to restart both the webserver serving Canvas, and the automated jobs daemon. On Debian/Ubuntu, you can do this like:

sysadmin@appserver:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
sysadmin@appserver:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/canvas_init restart

The quick-start setup may only require stopping and starting the script/server process, if it requires any restart at all.

Why isn't outgoing mail working?

There are a number of possible reasons why your outgoing mail configuration may not be working correctly. One of the easiest ways to figure out where your Canvas mail is going is to check the outgoing mail table's error column. You can see the last error that Canvas had (if any) after some scheduled job (such as email) by running:

sysadmin@appserver:~$ psql canvas_production -c "select last_error from delayed_jobs order by updated_at desc limit 1;"

I'm not even sure automated jobs like email are getting picked up.

Do you have the automated jobs daemon running? Try

sysadmin@appserver:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/canvas_init status

If you want more information about the specific kinds of jobs that may or may not be running in your system, you can visit

https://<your-canvas-hostname>/jobs

Something else is broken.

Try checking the error_reports table in the database for any messages possibly pertaining to the problem:

sysadmin@appserver:~$ psql canvas_production -c "select message, backtrace from error_reports order by id desc limit 1;"

I got the server running, but can't access it remotely

Following the Quick Start guide when you run

~/canvas$ bundle exec rails server

It binds to localhost. If you need it to bind to localhost and be accessible on your network try

bundle exec rails s -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3000

How do I access the Rails console?

If you followed the Production Start instructions, you can get a Rails console open by running (with appropriate adjustments):

sysadmin@appserver:~$ cd /var/rails/canvas
sysadmin@appserver:/var/rails/canvas$ sudo su canvasuser -c "env GEM_HOME=/home/sysadmin/gems \
                                      RAILS_ENV=production script/console"

The Quick Start instructions use the default RAILS_ENV value (development), and don't suggest creating a specific canvas user, so you can get away with just setting your GEM_HOME:

~$ cd ~/canvas
~/canvas $ GEM_HOME=~/gems script/console

Accessing a Rails console gives you unprecedented control over Canvas' inner workings. Be sure you know what you're doing.

I get this error message during install: uninitialized constant Rake::DSL

If you get this error while following the quick start guides, you may need to use the version of rake installed into your gems folder. Replace all instances of rake on the console with $GEM_HOME/bin/rake

I get Could not find table errors when running rake spec

Reset the test database using RAILS_ENV=test rake db:test:reset then the specs should run.

Multiple failing specs due to ForeignKeyViolation but work in isolation

Errors of this sort:

ActiveRecord::InvalidForeignKey:
        PG::ForeignKeyViolation: ERROR:  insert or update on table "enrollment_terms" violates foreign key constraint "fk_rails_e182f18b93"
        DETAIL:  Key (root_account_id)=(1) is not present in table "accounts"

Delete the test cache_store keys from config/cache_store.yml. It is no longer needed.

What to do if I don't have credentials to log into Canvas after installing using docker script

Normally, when installing using the 'docker_dev_setup.sh' script, the script should ask you to register an admin account once the installation is finished. However, this is not always the case, which can cause you to not be able to log in. To solve this issue, follow the steps below:

We have to log in to the docker container using the command =>

docker exec -u 0 -it <CONTAINER ID> /bin/bash

Once inside the docker container, run the following command to set up an admin account

rails db:initial_setup