Media Files Changing Format When Downloaded - Recent Change?

Until recently, I would say for about a week or so on Canvas, students submissions are compressed into a different file format when downloaded.

I noticed this with media files such as video .movs turn into mp4s . And uncompressed audio .wav files are converted and downloaded as m4as.

Not sure what's going on here, but this doesn't help me as I teach production classes where I would require audio and video the way it was submitted originally creating an issue for my courses, as I need access to the original, uncompressed media files for proper evaluation of audio quality, sample rate, bit depth, and other various metadata

Is this tied to Canvas or a recent infrastructure update? Is there a way to download the original files instead? I checked on a different internet browser, same results.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated

Cheers!

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Nichole

Hello @arbobk,

You may reach out to support regarding this issue. You can either reach out via the Canvas App or via Web. Please refer to the following guides on how to contact support:

adam_c_voyton

We’re seeing this issue as well, and it’s definitely unexpected. I haven’t seen anything in recent Canvas release or deploy notes that mentions automatic file conversion for student uploads, especially for media files. Canvas has historically preserved the original file format unless the preview failed—so this new behavior in SpeedGrader is unusual.

At this point, I think the best next step is to open a ticket with Instructure Support so they can confirm whether:

This is a new, undocumented feature,
A bug affecting certain file types, or
Something tied to a recent backend or media-processing infrastructure change.

Given your course needs, it will be important to know whether Canvas is replacing the original media or simply generating a converted preview. If the original is still stored somewhere, support may be able to direct us to a method for downloading the unmodified files.

In the meantime, if this persists, one possible workaround—at least temporarily—might be having students submit large/production-quality media through OneDrive or another cloud-based file-sharing method, where the original file fidelity should be preserved. That way, you’d still have access to the exact uncompressed audio and video files you need for evaluating metadata, sample rate, bit depth, etc.

But the priority should be confirming with Instructure why SpeedGrader is suddenly converting submissions and whether this behavior can be disabled or bypassed.

Stuart_Scott

Thank you, I have made a ticket for support.

JamesSekcienski

A workaround we found to get the original files is to go to the Assignment and select "Download Submissions". It looks like the original files are within the downloaded zip folder.

EricaBeals

We are seeing the same issue with Google LTI 1.3 files. When loaded in SpeedGrader, they now convert to .docx and must be downloaded and opened in Microsoft Word.

Stuart_Scott

James, thanks but what happens if I download all submissions and then I get a new submission later? I have to download all of them again? Or is there a way to download one at a time?

Stuart_Scott

Students sometimes have issues uploading through Google drive (which is what our campus uses). It's not always the best way to submit given they also have to be logged in through there as well, from my understanding.

JamesSekcienski

Unfortunately, you would have to download them all again for this workaround. We are seeing the same issue for trying to download the individual files from SpeedGrader.

Stuart_Scott

That is frustrating, something I also noticed speaking of Word documents, I cannot see revision history. Its almost as if that metadata is stripped.

Nancy_Webb_CCSF

This is a problem for our audio/video courses as well. Thanks for the workaround @JamesSekcienski - that will help in the short term although one doesn't want to have to keep downloading all the submissions every time there is a new one, so it's not a long term solution as @Stuart_Scott pointed out. The known issue: Audio files are downloading as m4a files - Instructure Community NOTE: on testing, the workaround still compresses audio files. No solution as yet.

The Google LTI 1.3 issue with Google/Word docs is also a problem for teachers wanting to leave annotations on submissions. Engineering is aware of that too. Google Assignments submissions or Files attached via the Google Drive LTI 1.3 show as zip files in SpeedGrader - Instructure Community

We all need to report to Canvas support so they will realize the impact of these issues!! as they say on the known issues page, "If you are experiencing behavior described in a known issue, please submit a ticket to Instructure Support using your institution's escalation process. This allows our Support team to adequately gauge the overall customer impact and prioritize appropriately."

Nancy_Webb_CCSF

A teacher reported that she used the Download Submissions workaround, and although the files had .wav extension, they were still compressed when expanded. I tested and that's the case, a 34.7MB file became about 1.5MB, quite a lot of compressing.

This makes it impossible for the teacher to grade these specialized audio files. This is a problem.

Nancy_Webb_CCSF

I hope this known issue will be fixed, because the one workaround I found that works thanks to a 2021 community post (THANK CANVAS COMMUNITY!) is for students to zip their media file(s) into a folder, and upload that. On testing, when downloaded and extracted, the audio file was full size, not compressed. Works when downloading all submissions too, a compressed folder within a compressed folder. At least it worked on my Win 11 PC.

adam_c_voyton

It seems it's in the queue to be fixed; I heard this from our CSM:

"Thanks for your patience. Engineers believe they've found the issue, and are currently validating their code, but they anticipate the fix will go out in the next Deploy on March 11.

I do not anticipate this going to the known issues space in the community based on the scope of impact. With less than 10 support cases opened, it would not fall into the typical category of a known issue. We know this is a pain point for our admins and faculty at times, and we are working on a public facing document outlining the criteria for known issues."

Nancy_Webb_CCSF

Thanks for sharing that information @adam_c_voyton . I tested and media files downloaded just fine when attached to a graded discussion post, but not from Files or Speedgrader. Will test again after the 11th.

We really need to encourage teachers to report these issues, I am sure more than 10 are upset. But, not everyone needs uncompressed media files. Doesn't mean it's not important though, when some update unexpectedly changes something that worked before.

adam_c_voyton

I agree, Nancy. I also think more of these issues should be surfaced as current known issues, even when the direct impact seems limited. It’s tough for admins and faculty to stay aware of what’s going on when something only becomes visible if you're personally affected or happen to hear about it from someone else.

And you’re right — the number of support cases doesn’t always reflect how many people are actually frustrated by a change. Even if only certain users rely on uncompressed media files, unexpected behavior shifts are still important to capture.

Stuart_Scott

Wanted to give an update, looks like it's not just for submissions, but also any files that have been uploaded in the modules.

Just had the first class of the term today- and a .mov ProRes video file (75mb) turned into an .mp4 with a very small file size.

This was very frustrating as we need to work in ProRes with the software… we were getting Codec errors when it came to the video. This shouldn't have be touched.

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