Jumping to the top of the screen

GRE6

For the past six months or so, when I engage some of the editing features in Canvas, I'm sent to the top of the page. For instance, if I click on the edit icon (the pencil) to edit the comments in a quiz question, I'll jump to the top of the screen. (And the comments box has meanwhile become editable, but I have to scroll back down to it.)

I haven't kept track of all of the features that cause this behavior, but there are others and it seems to be pretty predictable (i.e., always happening with some of them).

Is anyone else getting this? Is there anything that I can do to resolve it? All of the extra scrolling can really turn into a huge waste of time.

Jeff_F

@GRE6 - I had read about what described a few years back. Does this below help at all? ~ Jeff

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What you’re describing matches a known Canvas behavior where clicking the pencil to enable editing triggers a URL “anchor” jump to the top of the page rather than keeping your scroll position.

The specific trigger Canvas has been documented

In an Instructure Community thread about the same symptom (click pencil, get kicked to top), Canvas staff explained the jump can happen when the quiz edit page URL ends with a bare hash character. A trailing # acts like an anchor link and the browser scrolls to the top when the page updates focus. They noted that when editing quizzes you should be on the Questions tab URL that includes the tab anchor #question_tab, not a blank #. If the URL ends in /edit# (blank hash), clicking the pencil can cause the jump. [community….vaslms.com]

So, one concrete cause is:

• Quiz edit page URL ends with a blank # instead of #question_tab, and the pencil action causes the browser to jump to the top. [community….vaslms.com]

Things you can do right now that have worked for others

These are all pulled straight from that same thread’s solutions and workarounds.

1. Make sure you’re truly on the Questions tab URL before you click the pencil
   If you’re editing a quiz and you’re on the Questions tab, the URL should include something like .../edit#question_tab. If it ends with just .../edit#, that’s the “blank hash” situation that was tied to the jump. [community….vaslms.com]
2. Open the Questions tab in a new tab (workaround that avoided the jump)
   A reported workaround was to right click the Questions tab at the top of the quiz editor and choose “Open link in new tab.” Then do the pencil edits in that new tab. [community….vaslms.com]
3. Clear cached site data (worked for at least one person)
   Another user reported fixing it by clearing browser data, specifically cookies and cached images for Chrome. [community….vaslms.com]

Why it feels predictable

In your case it sounds “always happens with some features” because those features likely invoke the same kind of inline editor toggle that interacts with the page’s anchor state and focus. The quiz pencil edit you mentioned is exactly the example described in the community report. [community….vaslms.com], [community….ucture.com]

Quick way to confirm you’re hitting the same root cause

Next time it happens, glance at the address bar right after it jumps.

• If you see the URL ending in .../edit# (nothing after the #), that aligns with the documented cause. [community….vaslms.com]
• If it consistently ends in .../edit#question_tab and still jumps, then you’re likely dealing with a different variant (and the new tab workaround is still the fastest band aid). [community….vaslms.com]

One thing to tell your faculty or support team

If you end up reporting it, the clean description is:

• “Canvas quiz editor jumps to top when clicking pencil to edit feedback/comments; appears tied to URL hash state (/edit# vs /edit#question_tab).” [community….vaslms.com], [community….ucture.com]