Known Issues about Canvas Speedgrader

This article is a transparent list of Known Issues with the Canvas Speedgrader as of 1/29/2026. The goal is to update this list on a regular cadence to provide a local resource of known problems.

Official Known Issues (Canvas Community)

1. Grades show as “NaN” or disappear in SpeedGrader

Description: When changing a discussion graded with Complete/Incomplete to points or percentage, grades either disappear or appear as “NaN” in SpeedGrader.

Canvas Community Known Issue: Open: Grades show as “NaN” or disappear in SpeedGrader for checkpoint discussions initially graded as complete/incomplete

Status: Open / investigating
Impact: Grades not displaying correctly after changing grade type.

2. Shortcuts (like G, C, J, K) not working in SpeedGrader with checkpointed discussions

Description: Keyboard shortcuts for navigating or focusing fields don’t work when viewing full discussion context on checkpoint discussions.

Canvas Community Known Issue: Open: Pressing G in SpeedGrader shortcuts does not work with checkpointed discussions

Status: Open / investigating
Impact: Efficiency issues for power users and keyboard navigators.

3. Discussion Checkpoints related SpeedGrader navigation issues

Description: When Graded Checkpoints (discussion feature) is enabled for group discussions, navigation buttons specific to switching between replies are missing in SpeedGrader.

Canvas Community Known Issue: Open: Graded Checkpoints for Group Discussions lack feature-specific SpeedGrader navigation options

Status: Open / investigating
Impact: Harder to navigate through replies for checkpointed group discussions.

Other Reported / Campus-Observed Issues

These are not official Canvas “Known Issues” but have been widely reported by instructors and support staff:

4. SpeedGrader misrepresentation of word count in submitted PDFs

Description: Word count shown in SpeedGrader may be inaccurate, especially for PDFs saved with certain fonts (e.g., Aptos).

Known Issue article (University LMS known issues list): (Learning Management System)

Workaround: Encourage DOCX submissions or verify with downloaded document.

5. Unable to select sections properly

Description: SpeedGrader might show only a subset of students or misbehave when filtering by sections.

Known Issue article (University LMS known issues list): (Learning Management System)

Workaround: Disable certain subject settings (like Large Subjects) where relevant.

6. Community-reported typing / UI behavior issues

Description: In user forums, instructors report SpeedGrader feedback box jumping or refreshing, interrupting typing and slowing grading.

Canvas Community forum thread: (Instructure Community)

Note: This is a user-reported “issue” not yet elevated to official Canvas Known Issue status.

🛠 Issues Due to Discussion Checkpoints Feature Rollout

Canvas released Discussion Checkpoints which changed how discussions are graded in SpeedGrader. That rollout caused several indirect issues:

Navigation changes — previous/next reply navigation and context view are different (complaints of increased grading time). (Instructure Community)
Accessibility concerns and workflow confusion led some institutions to disable the feature temporarily. (Canvas Info @ Penn)

While not always listed as official known bugs, these behavior changes have spurred many complaints and support cases.

Local (Boise State University) Speedgrader Questions and Answers/Workarounds

Question: Submission dates on Canvas discussion boards are now vague and will be difficult to determine if submissions have met the deadlines stated on my rubric.

Screenshot:

Workaround:

The Instructor can hover over the days and see the original submission date and time.

Screenshot: