Canvas Classroom Status Saturday 9/5/26

Hi all,

We reached out to most of you yesterday regarding ongoing problems with the Canvas classroom used for Foundation Online. This is an update.

What’s happened?

There’s been a major hack on the Canvas platform, affecting millions of students worldwide. The site is down for those using free user accounts, which is most of us, including our admin team. The system is still sending out course messages, and we can’t log in to stop them, so for the moment, ignore any “new module released” messages from Canvas. Our announcement is here: https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/course-update-08-may-2026/

How this affects your study

With Canvas down, that means no access to the classroom, the Canvas messaging system, the quizzes and the mocks.

As we’ve said in the above announcement, the good news is that you can still access the material (YouTube videos, e-book and paperback)

To help you, we’ve discounted the Kindle version of our books to £1.99, so you can study on a computer, tablet, smartphone or a Kindle reader using our course material

We’re hoping that Canvas will be up soon, but we’re planning for the worst – a long outage.

Our “Plan B”

We are looking at migrating to a new platform, so we can still keep our service running. After a very late night, an early start, and lots of coffee, we have a work-in-progress course running on a new platform. There is still much work to do, but it’s looking promising.

• This weekend: We’re asking for around 5 beta testers to help us out – you’ll need to be available this weekend – see link below
• Over the next week: We will be releasing a limited version of the new course. It won’t be perfect. To control access, if you’ve already paid for a course, or are willing to pay a small fee, you’ll be first in line to get access in the next few days. Register using the link below
• Week beginning 18 May: Assuming Canvas is not back up, we hope to be able to re-open a free course for those already on a free course. Register using the link below
• Late May/Early June: Again, if no Canvas, we hope to be running new free monthly courses as well as paid courses. Normal enrolment will open shortly

ACTION: If you want to help with testing, need priority access to the new platform or want to keep getting email updates, please don’t reply to this email – use this form: https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/canvas-incident-feedback/

New forum

We’ve created a discussion forum, both for help with studying and course questions, as well as discussion of the future of the course. The forum is here, and you’ll have to create a user account to be able to post a message: https://courses.essexham.co.uk/forums/

Finished the course?

Great – the Canvas problems don’t affect you. If you’ve not done so already, please update us by completing the end-of-course survey: https://sxham.uk/trainsurvey

Finally

Thanks for your patience. This is obviously beyond our control and we’re working hard to support those who are studying or have an upcoming exam. As we’re drowning in emails, please use the forum where possible. Thanks to those who’ve sent messages of support – a couple of you have offered donations – they’re much appreciated as the new software isn’t cheap. If you fancy sending us a coffee, please use http://buymeacoff.ee/HamTrain

We hope Canvas will return soon; if not, we’re working hard on a Plan B!

Best regards,

Pete and the HamTrain team