Known Issues for the Blackboard App

iOS Setting to Allow Cross-Website Tracking for Blackboard App

With the release of Blackboard app v6.11, a new iOS setting was created for the app to allow cross-website tracking. This setting may be required to access LTI tool links from the app on iOS devices.

Before the "Allow Cross-Website Tracking" setting was made available on iOS devices, Blackboard app users may have encountered 3rd-party session cookie errors when accessing LTI tool links.

These 3rd-party session cookie errors have not been observed on Android devices when accessing LTI tool links from the app.

In order to enable "Allow Cross-Website Tracking" for the Blackboard app, please follow the steps below:

Update the Blackboard app to v6.11 on an iOS device
Launch the app to add the "Allow Cross-Website Tracking" option to the iOS Settings menu
Close the app in order to enable the setting
Go to Settings and Blackboard to enable the setting

This information is also documented on Behind the Blackboard in article number 000076036.

Announcement push notifications for Ultra courses need to be enabled at system level

In most cases, push notifications for announcements are turned on at the system level. At this time, there isn’t a setting for users to turn announcement push notifications on or off in the app or web view of Blackboard Learn. If users aren’t receiving announcement push notifications for Ultra courses, please set the system default notification settings to "on" or "always on" in the admin panel. Note that they won’t be able to opt out of them at this time. More on default notification settings.

Force to web logins inflated in activity accumulator table

When the Mobile B2 is configured with Force to Web authentication, the activity accumulator table in the Blackboard Learn database records the Mobile Login Attempt multiple times for every mobile app user login on iOS and Android . This affects logins from both the Blackboard and Blackboard Instructor apps. This table shows how mobile usage activity statistics for logins will be inflated:

Blackboard App Requirements
Learn Version	Blackboard App iOS	Blackboard Instructor App iOS	Blackboard App Android	Blackboard Instructor App Android
Enterprise/Classic	2 entries	2 entries	3 entries	3 entries
SaaS	2 entries	2 entries	1 entry	1 entry

Unsupported test presentation and review options

These test options are not supported within the Blackboard app when taking tests:

One at a time question presentation is ON
Timer with auto-submit is OFF (overtime)

These test options are not supported within the Blackboard app when reviewing tests:

Provide feedback for individual answers is ON
Show score per question is OFF
Show incorrect questions is OFF

Time zone differences for due dates

Time zones for due dates are different between Blackboard Learn 9.1 Original experience on a web browser and the Blackboard app. Blackboard Learn 9.1 Original experience displays all due dates in the server time zone, and Blackboard Learn Ultra experience and the Blackboard app show all due dates in the end-user machine time zone.

When a user is located in a different time zone than their school’s server, they see different times in the app compared to their Blackboard Learn 9.1 Original experience on a web browser. This difference can be especially confusing to students when the time difference pushes the due date to a day earlier or later. Blackboard Learn Ultra experience displays times in the end-user machine time zone along with the UTC offset value.

Blackboard app not compatible with Session Fingerprint

Resolved in Blackboard Learn SaaS 3500.7+

The Blackboard app is not compatible with Session Fingerprint settings to create a new session when the fingerprint changes. Several types of content that are not supported in the native UI are loaded in an in-app browser (webView), which uses a different user agent than the native app view. The traffic for webView requests does not go through the mBaaS relay like native requests, so the remote IP address and user agent changes. Therefore, the user agent and IP address must change in any webView workflow, and attempting to create a new session upon a change to the session fingerprint causes a session failure in the webView in-app browser.

Firewall allowed list to allow mobile traffic

The Blackboard app requires two services—MLCS and mBaaS. MLCS is the Mobile B2 registration service that handles the school search. mBaaS is the service relay in Amazon Web Services that handles the request traffic for the Blackboard app.

Firewall allowed list

Course list

The term or duration setting for a course determines if a course appears in the current, past, or upcoming course list. This property may not be visible to users of all roles.

Course List Placement