Question

I continue to receive submit failed, try again whenever I try to upload a file into my start assignment canvas.

What am I doing incorrectly?

James · Accepted Answer

@BECCAW7

There are various reasons why an upload might be failing.

If you have been using Canvas for a while, you might have been sending attachments through Canvas. Canvas gives everyone a quota of 50 MB of storage. Files that are submitted through assignments do not count towards that 50 MB, but messages sent through Conversations (the inbox) do. Files uploaded for a discussion count as well.

What can happen is that people send a lot of attachments (usually photos) through the Conversations that their quota gets filled up. Even though Canvas doesn't count files submitted as assignments against the quota, the process temporarily uploads them into your files where it is subject to the quota. The submission never makes it to the assignment to where it doesn't count against your quota because it never makes it into your files.

Another symptom of an exceeded file quota issue is if you try to upload a profile picture and it will not let you.

The way to check if this is the issue is to go to Account in Canvas (top left of the global navigation menu) and choose Files. At the very bottom of the screen (you may need to scroll down), there is a progress bar that will show a percentage of the quota. Mine currently says "18% of 52.4 MB used." If yours is close to 100% or even more than 100%, then this might be the issue you're experiencing.

The fix is to delete some files. The most likely place to find the files is under My Files and then "conversation attachments".  If you have a lot of large files, you should delete some. You can click at the top of the "Size" column to sort by size.

To delete a file, mouse over the right side and three vertical dots should appear. One of the options from that menu is to delete the file.

If you would like to delete multiple files, then click anywhere in that row except the image or filename. If you would like to delete a group of files, hold down the Shift and click on the last file to select them all. If you would like to delete individual files, then hold down the Ctrl (Command on a Mac) key and then click on additional files to select them. When you have a group selected, you can click on the trashcan button on the menu at the top.

I would check the file quota there, first. That's the primary cause of people not being able to upload at our school.

Another issue I frequently see is related to how you are trying to submit the file. I've had some students that try to use the Google or Office 365 integrations to submit a file and it doesn't work. But if they go to Google Drive or One Drive and download the file to their local computer, then they can upload it just fine. I've never been able to figure out why it doesn't work for them, but they understand that they have to download it and then upload it as two steps and they get it done.

If neither of those is the reason, then it may take additional work to track down the issue. There are some features in Canvas that can change what you experience depending on whether they are enabled, which makes it harder to track down without more information.

If your school has support for Canvas, I would reach out to them. Either way, I would definitely let your instructor know that you're having trouble submitting the file.