CANT ACCEPT COURSE INVITE

I am at my wits end trying to accept a course invite as a student. When I use either the email link inviting me to the course or when I login to canvas and click the green accept button on the invitation banner at the top of my dashboard I run into the same issue: it says "Welcome Aboard! (…) Click the link below to create a Canvas account." and then when I click the "I Have a Canvas Account" button it has me login but then take me right back to the same "Welcome aboard!" page asking me to login. I've even tried clicking the other "Create Account" button even though I already have an account. The admin has resent the invitation as well but the same problem happens. Iv'e also reported the issue to canvas and flagged it as urgent but they have not responded in a over a week. All of the tutorials and help material provided by canvas just shows logging in with the "Create Account" buttion. i dont know what else to try, any help would be very appreciated!!

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jeremyfw

Hi @EmilyTankeh67453836

Seeing the invite ≠ being able to claim the invite.

What’s likely happening is this:

Canvas is showing the invitation because the you are logged into an account that can see the invite metadata, but when they click Accept, Canvas re-runs an identity check behind the scenes. If the authentication method or email association doesn’t line up perfectly, Canvas fails the handshake and dumps them back to “Welcome Aboard.”

Think of it as:

Dashboard banner = You’re holding the ticket
Accept flow = The bouncer checks your ID again

If the ID doesn’t match exactly, you get bounced, even though you were already inside the building.

Why this can still break even when the invite is visible:

The account has multiple login methods (local login + Google/Microsoft)
The email tied to the invite is present but not the primary or confirmed email
The institution uses SSO, and the accept flow forces a re-auth against a different identity provider
You have a merged or partially merged account state

This is why the loop feels so irrational: everything looks correct.

The practical takeaway

If the invite is visible but won’t accept, resending invites won’t help. The fix is still administrative:

Admin manually enrolls you in the course
or
Admin confirms/cleans up the email + login identity on your account

Once the account identity is clean, the accept button works instantly.

Canvas is very strict about identity matching during enrollment acceptance, arguably too strict, but that’s the architecture you’re dealing with.

So yes: the invite is attached to the right account… but the acceptance pipeline is choking on identity validation during the final step.

The sure-fire fix (this works)

Have a Canvas admin do one of the following (in this order of reliability):

Option 1 — Add you manually

Admin goes to the course
Adds you by Canvas your ID (or by searching confirmed email inside Canvas)
Skips the invitation flow entirely

This bypasses the broken invite handshake.

Option 2 — Confirm the email on the existing account

Admin opens your Canvas user profile
Confirms the exact email address the invite was sent to
Removes any duplicate/unconfirmed emails
Resends the invite after confirmation

Option 3 — Merge duplicate accounts
If you have two Canvas accounts:

Admin merges them so the login identity and invite target are the same
Then re-adds you to the course

Things you can try (low success, but quick)

Log out completely
Open the invite link in an incognito/private window
Log in using email + password, not Google/Microsoft
Verify which email appears under Account → Settings

If the email shown there doesn’t match the invite email character-for-character, it won’t work.

Important reality check

Canvas Support often can’t fix this until an institutional admin intervenes. Flagging it as “urgent” doesn’t change that.

This isn’t something you’re doing wrong. An admin needs to manually add you to the course or fix the email identity on your Canvas account.

Once that happens, the issue resolves immediately.

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