Student submissions to assignment folder with " " or __ in file name will not open

Question

We had a bunch of students submit to an assignment folder and they used quotation marks in the file name. None of these files would open for the teacher so she could use the annotation tool. We ended up downloading and uploading all of the files again.

We've also seen this with underscore at the start of a file name.

Any suggestions to handle this more efficiently or with a config variable change

Michelle.B.359 · Answer

The biggest issue was with quotes in the file name. In this example, the teacher provided a template file with "beauty" in the name so 90% of the files submitted had that.

I tried with the Chrome and Edge browser and this is still an issue where the files won't open and we get the message

Sorry, we encountered an error processing this file. Please download the file to view it.

Chris.S.534 · Answer

Hi Michelle,

Yes, there are several Config Variables that control how the filenames are formatted when they are downloaded. See

https://community.d2l.com/brightspace/kb/articles/4403-assignments-configuration-variables

I tried several variation s of the filename you listed in your post but was unable to reproduce the behaviour experienced. That is, with filenames --, _, '' and so forth I was still able to open them and use the annotation tool when evaluating. The issue may be browser/platform related, I tested using Windows/Chrome. If you are able try using a different browser to see if the outcome is the same.

The only other suggestion, useful or otherwise, is to consider providing a file template as an attachment to the assignment task highlighting a suggested naming convention. Understandably this may not always be relevant to the task.

If the issue persists please open a support case with the D2L Support team for a deeper investigation. If the behaviour can be replicated, and is not expected, it may be deemed to be a defect and escalated to the dev team for a resolution.

Hope that helps!