What causes "No question type used when trying to parse a qti question" in instructure/canvas-lms?

Inspect the QTI XML to see what question_type was detected for the failing item

No question type used when trying to parse a qti question

Error message

No question type used when trying to parse a qti question

What it means

assessment_item_converter is an abstract base: parse_question_data is a template method meant to be overridden by type-specific subclasses (multiple_choice, essay, etc.). The base implementation logs and raises because no concrete question-type parser handled the item. It means the QTI item's type could not be classified into a known converter class.

Solutions

Inspect the QTI XML to see what question_type was detected for the failing item
Add/extend a subclass in lib/qti/ that supports the missing type, or extend the type-detection mapping
Preprocess/migrate the source package to a supported QTI type (e.g. convert to multiple_choice)
Capture the package and report as an importer bug if the type should be supported

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

begin
  converter.parse_question_data
rescue RuntimeError => e
  raise unless e.message.start_with?('No question type used')
  importer.add_warning(:unknown_question_type, item.identifier)
  UnsupportedQuestionSkip.new(item)
end

Prevention

Normalize vendor QTI packages before import
Map unknown types to a generic fallback converter
Keep a corpus test of QTI samples covering all supported types

When it happens

Trigger: A QTI <assessmentItem> whose question type maps to no known subclass, so the generic AssessmentItemConverter instance itself has parse_question_data called on it during a QTI import.

Common situations: Importing QTI packages with exotic or vendor-specific question types; malformed <question_type> metadata; a third-party LMS export using types Canvas doesn't recognize.

Understand the failure class

Background: "NotImplementedError: Subclasses should override this method" / "must be implemented" — abstract method errors explained — this error's family across 40 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of instructure/canvas-lms@1c9f0bb801 (2026-09-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/46dd0d19ab49bdda. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at gems/plugins/qti_exporter/lib/qti/assessment_item_converter.rb:69

        @href = @package_root.item_path(@manifest_node["href"])
        if (title = @manifest_node.at_css("title langstring") ||
           @manifest_node.at_css("xmlns|title xmlns|langstring", "xmlns" => Qti::Converter::IMS_MD))
          @title = title.text
        end
      else
        @qti_data = opts[:qti_data]
      end

      @question = { answers: [],
                    correct_comments: "",
                    incorrect_comments: "",
                    question_text: "" }
    end

    # This should be implemented in the children classes to do the type-specific parsing
    def parse_question_data
      @log.error "No question type used..."
      raise "No question type used when trying to parse a qti question"
    end

    def create_doc
      create_xml_doc
    end

    def create_xml_doc
      @doc = if @manifest_node
               Nokogiri::XML(File.open(@href))
             else
               Nokogiri::XML(@qti_data)
             end
    end

    EXCLUDED_QUESTION_TEXT_CLASSES = ["RESPONSE_BLOCK", "RIGHT_MATCH_BLOCK"].freeze

    def create_instructure_question
      begin

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