With any student issue, we always recommend going through some basic troubleshooting steps first. You can start out by asking for clarity on what exactly is happening, and when it makes sense, ask for a screenshot of the issue.
Asking the student to reboot and try another browser is always a quick way to eliminate a possible tech issue. Often, student issues can be resolved with a few simple browser troubleshooting steps!
Below are some common student issues and some troubleshooting tips for each issue.
My student can’t log into my Thinkific site.
My student can't purchase a course / their card is declined.
My student isn’t seeing the correct course on their Student Dashboard.
My student received an iPhone notification regarding their password security.
My student is having trouble viewing videos.
My student is having trouble playing audio files.
My student is having trouble viewing PDF lessons.
My student’s recurring (i.e. subscription) payments failed.
My lessons are set to autoplay, but they won't autoplay for my student.
My student can’t log into my Thinkific site.
If one of your students is having trouble signing in to their account, you have a few options to help them:
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As a first step, you can start out by confirming that the student has an account on your site, and that their email address is spelled correctly by heading to Users > All Users in your admin dashboard. If their email address isn’t there, you can check if their name exists under a different email address. When students cannot access a course or their account we often find it is because they are using the wrong or misspelled email address.
- Your student may have forgotten their password. In this case, the student can reset their password.
- Students can reset their password by going to your Thinkific site, clicking Sign in and then selecting Forgot my password. That page lives here: https://yoursite.thinkific.com/users/password/new
- After inputting their email address and selecting Forgot my password, they will receive an email with a link to reset their password. This email can take up to 5-10 minutes to be received. Note that if they click Forgot my password many times, multiple emails will be sent and only the reset link in the most recent email will work.
- If the student gets an error when they click the reset link that says Error: reset token failed, this is usually because they clicked Forgot my password many times and are attempting to use an old link. It can also happen if they click on a link that is over 6 hours old.
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If your student is still having trouble resetting their password via that link, you can manually reset their password for them, by clicking on the edit button next to a student on the All Users page, then providing that to them via email.
My student can't purchase a course / their card is declined.
Card processing issues are often caused by a restriction set by the cardholder's bank. From insufficient funds to an overzealous fraud system, payment failures can happen for a number of reasons. As a quick first step, you can always ask your student can try a different card. If they're unable to try that, you may need to do a bit of investigation.
If you're taking payments through Stripe, you can take a look at your connected Stripe account to see if an error is present in your logs (Events and Logs > Logs). If you notice an error message, check out this list of common bank decline codes so you can understand what to do for next steps.
Here are some other common issues to look out for:
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Some debit cards require a PIN to be entered. If the cardholder is trying to use one of these cards, they may need to use another card to make the purchase.
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Some cards have restrictions on cross-border usage. If the card was issued in a country other than where your business is located, this could be the issue. In this case, you can ask your student to contact their bank to see if they have this restriction, and if they can lift that restriction for this purchase.
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High-cost items can trigger a fraud warning from the cardholder's bank. Again, in this case, you can ask your student to contact their bank to authorize the purchase.
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Some cards (often corporate cards or FSA cards) can only be used for certain business categories, like travel or healthcare. In this case, your student may need to use a different card.
If you're still unable to resolve the issue with your student, feel free to fill out the Student Issue Template and we can assist you further!
My student isn’t seeing the correct course on their Student Dashboard.
Getting to the root cause of why your student doesn't see a course on their student dashboard is easily found by navigating to several places in your account and answering a few questions.
- Check the All Users section of your admin dashboard to confirm the student has enrollments:
- Does the student exist? Are they enrolled in any courses? Are they the correct courses?
- Are they enrolled in the full course or just the free preview?
- Is their enrollment expired?
- Does their date of enrollment match their order date?
- Check the Orders section of your admin dashboard, to confirm that the order exists. Note that their order will only exist if you are taking payments within Thinkific.
- Does the order exist?
- Does it show the amount paid?
- Does this match what courses the student is enrolled in?
- If you've integrated Stripe and/or PayPal, check those integrated accounts to see if the customer and their payment exists
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Can you find the customer?
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Does the customer have a credit card attached? Did a payment go through? Is it showing declined or failed credit card errors?
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If you've followed these steps and you're still unsure why a course isn't appearing on your student's dashboard, fill out the Student Issue Template and send it our way so we can assist you further!
My student received an iPhone notification regarding their password security.
With recent iOS updates, your students may see an iPhone notification alerting them that their email or password login credentials - for their student accounts on your Thinkific site - were included in a data leak.
Please note that these notifications are not associated with a security breach specific to Thinkific. These notifications are triggered when Apple iOS finds passwords that have been included in a known data leak. If a student has reused a password - from another site that experienced a security breach - for their Thinkific student account, they may see this warning for their Thinkific login credentials.
For more information about Thinkific's security practices and protocols, please refer to our Security FAQ.
We suggest students use a unique password for their Thinkific student account and that they do not share their login credentials. If a student needs to reset their password, they can find instructions for how to do so in this article: How to Reset Your Password.
My student is having trouble viewing videos.
Often, this issue is caused by a browser problem on the student's computer. It is also worth noting what file type you have chosen to upload your videos in. For example, .mp4 is most widely supported across all browsers. If you are using another format, it may be that the student's specific browser does not support that file type. You can check out Can I Use to find out what file types are best supported by which browsers. We also recommend that all internet browsers be up to date. If you're not sure what browser you're using you can check out here: https://www.whatsmybrowser.org/
Here are some basic browser troubleshooting steps that are a great starting point to recommend to your students.
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Clear the cache and restart the browser. Also, check if you’re using the newest version of the browser
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Try a different browser (we like Google Chrome)
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Try an Incognito / Private Window (this will rule out an issue with browser extensions).
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Restart the device (it's a cliche but it works!)
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If possible, try a different device!
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If possible, try a different internet connection! School and/or corporate firewalls occasionally block our video provider.
For other video-related issues, please check out our video playback troubleshooting guide.
My student is having trouble playing audio files.
Often, this issue is caused by a browser problem on the student's computer. It is also worth noting what file type you have chosen to upload your audio files in. For example, .mp3 is most widely supported across all browsers. If you are using another format, it may be that the student's specific browser does not support that file type. You can check out Can I Use to find out what file types are best supported by which browsers.
Here are some basic browser troubleshooting steps that are a great starting point to recommend to your students.
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Clear the cache and restart the browser. Also, check if you’re using the newest version of the browser
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Try a different browser (we like Google Chrome)
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Try an Incognito / Private Window (this will rule out an issue with browser extensions).
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Restart the device (it's a cliche but it works!)
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If possible, try a different device!
My student is having trouble viewing PDF lessons.
If students are receiving a message that they cannot view the PDF on their browser yet can normally view PDFs from other websites, it may have to do with your browser settings. Ask the student to check their browser and ensure that the application set to view PDFs is the "preview in browser" option.
My student’s recurring (i.e. subscription) payments failed.
When a payment in Stripe is attempted and fails, that student automatically loses access to the course content in Thinkific and the student enrollment is marked as expired. Stripe will then automatically attempt to process the payment based on the schedule you've set at https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/recurring. If the issue is addressed by the student during these attempts and payment is successful, access will be restored. If the payment is unsuccessful following those attempts, the student enrollment will stay as expired with no access to course content.
More questions about Stripe? Check out our Stripe FAQ!
My lessons are set to autoplay, but the lessons won't autoplay for my student.
Safari has released an update so that you can now toggle on/off whether a site will obey auto-play. If your student is using Safari, we'd recommend having them check their browser settings to enable autoplay for your Thinkific site.
We find the majority of the time student issues can be resolved with some basic sleuthing on your end and it's pretty rare to go through the above steps and still see a problem. That said, if you do, sharing your findings and details with us using the template below!
Student Issue Template (Please fill out with as much information as possible)
- Please provide a brief description of the issue.
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What is the name of your student(s) that were impacted and what is their email address?
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Which course(s) and which lesson(s) were they experiencing this issue?
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Which browser and which version was your student experiencing this issue in?
- Does the student have any browser extensions/plug-ins installed and did they try disabling them?
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What troubleshooting steps did you try?
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Were you able to replicate the problem? Can you provide a screencast of the issue occurring?
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Is there an error message? Can you send us a screenshot of the error message?
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Can you screenshot any errors you see in your browser console?