“Session Expired” Message When Viewing a Public Canvas Site

“Session Expired” Message When Viewing a Public Canvas Site

A “session expired” message and a log-in prompt appear after several minutes of viewing the public version of a Canvas site either for users whose login data has been saved in Canvas from a prior session or for users who are logged into Canvas in another browser window.

There are two possible solutions for this issue:

1. Log out of Canvas and clear your browser’s cache before accessing the public version of a Canvas site. Here are instructions for how to clear your browser’s cache:

Clearing your cache on a PC

Clearing your cache on a Mac

2. Use Google Chrome’s “Incognito” mode if you want to remain logged into Canvas while viewing the public version of a Canvas site (more information on Google Chrome’s “Incognito” mode).

Since this issue only affects users who have access to a Canvas instance, anyone outside the University of Washington who is not associated with a Canvas instance should not experience this issue. If a public version of a Canvas site is accessed by someone at another institution that has a Canvas instance, they should follow either of the above suggestions to avoid seeing the time-out message and log-in prompt.


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