SPIKE: Provisioning unreliable when multiple embedded clients are present (LMS)

[klemay]

Reported via Zendesk.

An instructor using Canvas reported that when he creates Hypothesis assignments using HTML pages that have Hypothesis embedded, provisioning does not work reliably.

I have been able to reproduce this in Canvas, but not in Moodle or Blackboard. (The Sakai Nightly instance behaves so strangely that I don't think testing there would give us meaningful data).

Steps to reproduce

1. In Canvas, create a Module Item or assignment using an HTML page that has Hypothesis embedded. This professor used http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/; we reproduced using that URL as well as an H blog post: https://web.hypothes.is/blog/webinar-30-jan-2019-custom-annotation-groups-for-publishers-with-hypothesis/

2. View your assignment and see that provisioning has worked:

3. Now, refresh your browser tab. You'll see the Public channel and will no longer be logged in as the LMS user (in my case, it logged me in to the Hypothesis account I'm using in another tab):

The console throws the following errors:

You might have to refresh your browser tab a few times to see this.

[klemay]

Update: a user saw this in D2L as well: https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/3807

[mkdir-washington-edu]

I believe these Canvas users are having the same problem: https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/11179

Users built Canvas Assignments out of https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/vethisto/chapter/3-the-cellular-component/. The Sidebar doesn't automatically appear open when you visit this site, but Hypothesis is referenced in the HTML:

The end result is that the LMS app and the web app seem to alternate when refreshing the page, about 50% of the time each. Slack discussion here: https://hypothes-is.slack.com/archives/C2BLQDKHA/p1594216225325500.

[dwhly]

Is this a broader class of problem, i.e. "Any parent frame that embeds a subframe which also has H embedded" or is "just the LMS app"?

[mkdir-washington-edu]

Additional tickets:
https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/11312
https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/11675
https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/14062
https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/14793

[mkdir-washington-edu]

This user ran into this issue: https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/13369

The LMS assignment giving them a problem is based off of https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/17-conquering-the-west/frederick-jackson-turner-significance-of-the-frontier-in-american-history-1893/.

The user tested this extensively and saw that if a certain app (LMS or web app) loads first, it seems to load again and again in Firefox and Safari, but it seemed to be variable in Chrome.

[mattdricker]

Another instructor reporting same issue in Bb using Pressbooks for an assignment. No ticket to link to, as it came up during a success zoom call.

[mattdricker]

Ticket with issue using LMS app on their own Pressbook document: https://app.hubspot.com/contacts/6291320/ticket/330164280/

[mkdir-washington-edu]

Consolidated testable URLs (some of these are mentioned above, some are in tickets:

• http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/
• https://web.hypothes.is/blog/webinar-30-jan-2019-custom-annotation-groups-for-publishers-with-hypothesis/
• https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/vethisto/chapter/3-the-cellular-component/
• https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/17-conquering-the-west/frederick-jackson-turner-significance-of-the-frontier-in-american-history-1893/
• https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/writing-is-recursive/
• https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/manufacturingterms/front-matter/introduction/

Note that in PressBooks sometimes the Hypothesis Sidebar doesn't appear, but the web app is still embedded, just hidden, so the same problem occurs.

[esanzgar]

I have made a preliminary assessment of this issue: there are two conflicting hypothesisConfig one from the LMS iframe and the other from the host page.

I observe that:

• if the sidebar shows the Public group, the hostPageConfig is coming from host page and shows this value {showHighlights: "always"}
• if the sidebar shows a LMS group, the hostPageConfig is coming from the LMS iframe and shows this value {openSidebar: true requestConfigFromFrame: {origin: "http://localhost:8001", ancestorLevel: 2} showHighlights: "always"}

host frame configuration

       // Inject the Hypothesis client.
        window.hypothesisConfig = function () {
            return {"showHighlights": "always"};
        }

LMS configuration

        // Inject the Hypothesis client.
        window.hypothesisConfig = function () {
            return {"openSidebar": "1", "requestConfigFromFrame": {"origin": "http://localhost:8001", "ancestorLevel": "2"}, "appType": "via", "showHighlights": true};
        }

Maybe a solution could be to make window.hypothesisConfig not writable (with Object.defineProperty) after the LMS has added it.