Webex Education Connector & CANVAS = Trouble Communicating with Webex at this time

[rikardkrvaric]

I have received several trouble tickets in the past 2 week with basically TWO different problems:

1. When creating a new Session in CANVAS with the Education Connector, faculty is getting "We are having trouble communicating with Webex at this time"

and

2. If faculty already have meetings scheduled, they are unable to start them. They click to start their meeting, like any other meeting, and they are told they cannot join the meeting, because the meeting number is incorrect.

They get a mysterious "Error 9", which even Google can't fine.

Anybody else getting this in EducationConnector?

[rikardkrvaric]

It looks like Cisco is updating their XML API schema in 41.6. I am not sure if this will resolve it or not, but I am sure they have realized it to be impacting by now.

https://help.webex.com/en-us/nvuo92z/Cisco-Webex-Meetings-API-Updates-Overview-API-41

[emiliolara]

Hi Rikardkravaric,

We had the same issue (with Moodle) and opened a case. Apparently, the 41.6 update does fix the issue. Disabling "Webex Meetings Webex Events Advanced" option is the workaround and the impact is not being able to use the "Webex Events" New option. These are the words from a Cisco engineer:

I did confirm with LMS team and as per them they did not make any changes from backend.

Even I did check all the options no changes done. As per LMS team this could be the XML API team released v41.6API as it is supported with EC2.0 which is enabled for the user.

As we can check on your site the API version is 41.6.0.2446.

[rikardkrvaric]

Where do I find my XML schema number?
41.6 is supposed to come out in June.

My cluster is set to upgrade on June 15th.

I found only this in my Webex site administration page...

Page version: 41.5.6.1
Desktop app version: 41.5.6.9

[emiliolara]

The TAC provided me that information.

Sorry for not responding you back sooner.

Have a nice one.

[rikardkrvaric · Accepted solution]

It looks like we have a fix...

This is indeed a Cisco Webex Events 2.0 error... (EC2.0)

So, whenever your site was upgraded, that's probably when your problem started.

We've had this problem for about 2 weeks, and May 4 is the date our site was upgraded to 41.5... so, exactly 2 weeks.

The secret sauce is to DISABLE "Webex Meetings Webex Events Advanced", for each user.

I have received confirmation from faculty members that they are now able to schedule meetings in CANVAS(LMS) again.

Cisco TAC wrote: "current XML API release doesn't support to schedule and set EC2.0 meeting (https://help.webex.com/en-us/nvuo92z/Cisco-Webex-Meetings-API-Updates-Overview-API-41). The org admin needs to uncheck EC2.0 for each LMS scheduling host as its not supported by XML API's currently." 

TAC continued: "This is a recent API update which unfortunately does not support EC2.0 at this current time but will in the near future.
EC2.0 needs to be disabled for any hosts that schedule their meetings through Canvas."

[Taylor Gary]

I created an account on the forums here to say thank you.

We have a large Canvas institution and have had a case open with TAC since May 11th and still have not received a resolution. We suspected the recent update to be the cause but could not nail it down. This fix works for all of our reported cases although there seems to be some inconsistency with the root cause, even if EC2.0 is not supported. It seems that most of our institution is not having having an issue. Even on our support staff side, we have maybe only 2 our of 8 of our staff who can replicate the problem. All of us have the "Webex Meetings Webex Events Advanced" permission checked as it was added as default with the most recent release. The affected accounts still seem quite random.

If you have any more updates on your case, please let me know. I provided TAC with this solution and asked for clarification on affected population as well as an ETA on API support for the educonnector. Still have not heard back with anything substantive. 

[rikardkrvaric]

Thank you @Taylor Gary !

My experience was with faculty that was trying to create NEW meetings...  If you already had a meeting scheduled, you were most likely not affected. But this hit right around Finals time... So, it started off with a sporadic issue in early may, that quickly snowballed.

[rikardkrvaric]

Wonderful @Leanne MacLeod ... I have also opened a Cisco Tac Case 691421259. I referenced your case in my ticket. And it was escalated to Engineers within a few minutes of troubleshooting.

[Leanne MacLeod]

@rikardkrvaric Good Morning, we raised a Cisco Tac Case 691352308  on the 5th May regarding a similar issue with our LMS. Waiting on an update from the LMS Team.

Many thanks

Leanne