News and Announcements

Desire2Learn (Learn@UW) - Embedded content being blocked by some browsers

Posted: 2013-09-11 14:40:41   Expiration: 2014-10-20 14:40:41

Disclaimer: This news item was originally posted on 2013-09-11 14:40:41. Its content may no longer be timely or accurate.

Default settings of IE, Firefox, and Chrome browsers can cause a blank screen when viewing embedded content in D2L coming from a non-secure source, such as YouTube. Click for details.

Desire2Learn is secured by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Content in frames pointing to non-SSL URLs, such as YouTube, will be restricted by some browsers. This is referred to as "mixed content blocking." These are some of the symptoms you may see in your courses when mixed content blocking happens:

  • Embedded media does not play in Content; accessing the same video from the Links section works
  • A content topic doesn't load and instead displays a blank screen
  • Widget content doesn't load
  • Embedded YouTube, SlideShare, etc. doesn't load

Which browser are blocking mixed content?

These browsers are known to block non-SSL content from within D2L:

  • Firefox 23
  • Internet Explorer 10
  • Chrome 30 (beta)
  • Other browsers may implement this security feature in the future; however, Safari is currently not blocking mixed content
What you can do

Because Safari is not blocking mixed content, you could use Safari. 

It's recommended that Chrome users upgrade to Chrome 32 to alleviate the problem.

In addition, you can choose to modify your browser's security settings to allow the display of mixed content. 

To display content when it's blocked, click the shield icon in the address bar (left side with Firefox; right side with Chrome) and respond to the menu that pops up. For Firefox, pull down the "Keep Blocking" menu and select "Disable protection on this page." For Chrome, click "Load Anyway" or "Load Script."

For step-by-step instructions, refer to this document.

-- Learn@UW Madison