Some students have reported intermittent issues where they type up a response to a discussion question in Canvas and when they post it, it ends up posting with a blank reply instead of the information they typed up.
Instructure support says that this can happen if during a reply, if the student clicks outside of the text entry box and then types an 'N' on their keyboard, it can generate a new blank box and can result in submitting blank text.
There are two recommendations that students should keep in mind when posting responses.
1) It is recommended that you type your response in a separate application like NotePad, Microsoft Word, or TextEdit and then copy/paste that response into the discussion text entry box. That way if there is an issue with posting, the student does not lose the original post and can simply copy/paste a new version to the thread.
2) Instructure recommends that users disable the ability to use keyboard shortcuts. They can do this by clicking on the 'Account' button on the left sidebar (the one that can have your photo on it). Click on 'Settings' and then scroll all the way down to the User settings.
Click the button as shown in the image below and choose disable.