Module Layout Changed

Upon further digging, responses you received @brendaa & @pray4 were accurate with the information agents had available to them at the time. The issue has been fixed but not deployed yet.

@JessBaker & @hmcneill, the information you received wasn't accurate, and we're sorry. Our Support agents are people, and you should be able to count on clear, correct answers every time. We're taking this seriously and working to raise that bar.

Thanks again for staying engaged with us here. We'll share an update if it looks like the fix will deploy before the next scheduled deploy on July 15th.

Canvas Change Log - Instructure Community

Thank you for asking that, @Kari45241578. I was waiting to hear back from our Product team on if they would be able to apply the fix sooner. They will, but they will be waiting until after the US Holiday weekend to apply the fix, ensuring more hands are on deck in case it introduces any other unforeseen issues.

Chris

Hi everyone,

I have good news on this! It appears that Instructure released a fix for the issue today. I and others have noted the modules view looks back to normal in Production. If you're still seeing issues, I'd encourage you to contact Canvas Support to let them know.

-Chris

All comments

Chris_Hofer

@clouden …

Yup, I'm seeing the same behavior in our Canvas environment, too. It's also happening in another Canvas environment I have access to as well. I do know that others within the "Canvas EDU" Slack channel are also seeing it in their own school "production" Canvas environments. If I recall, someone had posted that their CSM (Customer Success Manager) said it would be fixed in the next Canvas Deploy (but I am not 100% sure on this, so don't take my word for it). I'd suggest, if possible, to file a ticket with Canvas Support. I'm sure that others have also submitted tickets, so Support could attach your ticket to existing ones, and you'd be updated when things are fixed.

I hope this will be helpful in some way.

JarrodHiles

We're also experiencing this issue across all our instances and have logged a ticket with Instructure support.

Curiously, it seems to temporarily "resolve" if you edit the name of the linked module item - but refreshing the page returns it to the erroneous layout. This makes me think it must be a bug.

J_Kurosaki

I was surprised by this change too!
I'd love to know if there are any other updates besides the design.
Does anyone know where I can find more information or a changelog? 　Thanks!

Chris_Hofer

@J_Kurosaki …

Hi there. I don't know that this was an intended change. You can find the Release Notes and Deploy Notes here:

Canvas Release - Instructure Community

A Change Log link is located on the right side of that page, or you can access it here:

J_Kurosaki

Thank you for the information.
Actually, I read the "Release Notes," but I didn't know about the "Canvas Change Log" page.

So, this might not even be an intended change... I will check out the links you shared. Thanks again!

We're seeing the same wonky display in Modules starting on 7/1. I put in a ticket to support to try and escalate this. Annoying, but it still works as expected.

hmcneill

We reported this on Wednesday to Instructure. Support told us that it was a conflict with our theme as they didn't have the same issue, but there's no CSS in our theme that would do this. I have replied to that effect, but am glad to see it's not just us!

kscheid

Didn't know about it until I had a faculty member complain about it. Thanks for info here.

Just had multiple staff members report this as well. Has anyone received an update from Instructure on whether this is permanent or an issue they are working to fix?

DSSCC

Same thing at my institution, in all instances. It started yesterday afternoon (7/1/26), and this morning faculty have started calling in about it. I was glad to find this thread to know it's not just us. Also glad it's not affecting functionality. Hopefully Instructure will resolve it soon, or at least let us know what it is.

CoryLBougher

This appeared today in our instance - it still functions correctly but it does cram a lot of page details into a small area so a mobile view is efficient while the desktop view has a lot of wasted space.

Tasha_Weaver

We're seeing this too. @Allison Howell, is there any documentation or release note describing the rationale for the change?

pray4

I know this is a somewhat snarky append, but it might not have even really been a person on the support staff telling you this — sadly, support is pretty obviously feeding incoming tickets to an AI agent which generates 3-5 paragraphs of — in my experience — not very helpful information. It's causing a lot of issues for us right now and generating a lot of unnecessary back and forth to the point I've created a keyword/phrasing repository for my team and colleagues to make it somewhat manageable.

I just had a response from Canvas Support "Yes, we're aware of this issue. This is because of an update which was pushed in Canvas recently and our engineering team is working on reverting it back to normal. We do not have a ETA on when this will be done but will be pushed in our next update."

This is the response I just received from support. The link they put in the ticket was the link to this post.

Dear Jessica Baker,

Thank you for contacting Canvas Support regarding the adjustments you are seeing on your Modules page layout.

The visual layout changes you described—including the alignment of the action icons and button placement on the left side of the screen—are indeed intentional. This interface updates the spacing and structural design of the modules framework across the platform.

You can find the technical rationale, layout definitions, and user experience details regarding this specific structural refresh in our official release documentation below:

Please feel free to share your specific layout feedback or formatting observations within the community discussion thread, and let us know if you have any additional questions regarding the update.

Best regards,

aspenwal

We're seeing the same. I do not see anything in the release notes or change log that would lead me to believe this is intentional. Given this (minor) unintentional change and the change earlier in June that stripped out all of our captioned iframes from 3Play media but left iframes from YouTube intact, I'm nervous about Canvas's QA process.

So within 10 minutes we got two totally different responses to the same question. This is not giving me confidence in support.

Very frustrating! I sent an email to our CSM as well to hopefully get some more information.

CoryLBougher

Well that second reply is AI'd 🤷‍♀️

Since this same behavior is showing in BETA as well, I am wondering if they just launched this change in both PROD and BETA the same time rather than testing just in BETA first. Either way, if this is a layout change that was intentional, customers should be notified in advance so we can make our users aware that it will be happening.

Just some feedback: This change in the layout is NOT helpful. Not to instructors or to students. Complaints from students are rolling in now as it's more difficult for them to find items they need in individual modules. Please consider reverting back to the previous settings.

HollieD59226914

I've been trying to troubleshoot this since yesterday as well - glad to know it wasn't something I did, but if this was an intentional redesign by Instructure, I agree with previous comments that it is NOT helpful. Will be watching to see if we get a better response,

Agreed!

pray4

Sharing my reply from support here, but basically — they have identified the cause of the bug and developed a fix which is awaiting deployment.

Hello Patrick,

Thank you for reaching out to Canvas support today!
We are sorry about the inconveniences caused by this issue, our engineers have identified and fixed the root cause, but the fix was not deployed yet. Currently I do not see a date scheduled for the deploy.
I will attach a tracker to this case so you will be updated when its fixed.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Kind Regards,

tom_gibbons

Yesterday was Deploy day. It's a day I'm coming to loathe.

The original intent of these was to lay the foundation for other changes in a way that wouldn't alter the UI/UX in any significant way, or to fix things that weren't working as intended.

More and more frequently, the Deploy will result in a change that is completely undocumented, and, I'm guessing, unintentional. This one doesn't break anything, as such. But it's annoying and disorienting to instructors. And yesterday was the first day of our Summer term.

TarynHixson

I’m really relieved to know that I’m not the only one that is bothered by this. I was hoping it is some type of bug, but it almost feels like it was done on purpose. Can we please have the old layout back? Where can we reach out to in order to express our dislike for the odd formatting?

TarynHixson

Well, after reading some more comments, it seems a little more hopeful that it might be a bug and are fixing it, but I still wouldn’t mind a resource for any future needs.

Can we please have the old layout back? I'm running two Summer courses and student complaints are rolling in.

pray4

I feel like I'm missing something - how would this impact your students? I don't think these page elements should be visible to them anyways.

kscheid

Agreed, this is is in the Teacher edit mode for us.

Students see Module Requirements (View, contribute, etc) and those are also on the left side. Most of our online classes use these.

Some of it is the shock of the new collapsed type of layout they see. This is not user friendly. Most of the complaints are students saying they can't find things in the Module. This is not visually intuitive as before. This was a solution in search of a problem.

harperm

This has to be changed. With my visual perception, working inside the modules is very difficult and time consuming. This is an accessibility issue. Please reinstate the prior module layout. Thank you.

We greatly appreciate each of you that took time to post to this thread and we're escalating this through our Product team as well as our Support team. Thank you and I'll post an update as we know more.

Kari45241578

Thank you @Renee Carney for this update. Like many on this thread I am teaching 3 summer courses and my husband is teaching 3. This issue is also affecting our students layout because we both use the student features of "view, submit, contribute" etc. This has grossly elongated their weekly modules, making the viewing clunky, cumbersome, and difficult for them to even view one week module on a screen.

You stated there is a fix correct? However, can you clarify why we may have to wait until July 15th?

Would it benefit if my students reached out to Canvas for their own complaints? will that help Canvas expedite this?

Thanks,

@tom_gibbons I have read this post many times because I am so grateful for this honest and direct gift of feedback you are giving us. I am also grateful for your longtime partnership as well as friendship. Your feedback, as well as everyone else in this thread, is heard.

abbyrosensweig

Hi @Renee Carney , any update on this issue now that the holiday weekend has passed?

I just noticed that the issue seems to be resolved and Canvas Support closed the ticket. There was no notification about it being fixed.