instructure/canvas-lms · error · PeerReview::StudentIdsNotInCourseError

Student ids are not in course

Error message

Student ids are not in course

What it means

PeerReview::StudentIdsNotInCourseError raised by validate_student_ids_in_course when the (non-blank-checked upstream) student_ids arrive blank — the ids supplied do not correspond to enrollments the validator can confirm in the course.

Solutions

  1. Verify each id is an enrolled student in the target course before calling
  2. Re-fetch the course's student roster and use those ids
  3. Check for course/shard mismatch causing enrollment lookups to return nothing

Example fix

// before
ids = [451, 452] # ids from another course
service.call(student_ids: ids)
// after
ids = course.students.where(id: [451, 452]).pluck(:id)
raise ArgumentError, 'no valid students' if ids.empty?
service.call(student_ids: ids)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

valid_ids = course.students.where(id: student_ids).pluck(:id)
raise ArgumentError, 'no students from the list are enrolled in this course' if valid_ids.empty?

Try / catch

begin
  service.call(student_ids:)
rescue PeerReview::StudentIdsNotInCourseError
  render json: { error: 'Students must be enrolled in the course' }, status: :unprocessable_entity
end

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling a peer review service where the resolved student id list is blank: ids from users not enrolled in the course, ids filtered out by visibility/permissions, or an empty resolution result passed onward.

Common situations: Students enrolled after the call's enrollment snapshot; ids from a different course's roster; observer/test-student ids used by mistake.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of instructure/canvas-lms@1c9f0bb801 (2026-09-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/852b4900e52818ec. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at app/services/peer_review/validations.rb:221

    raise PeerReview::OverrideNotFoundError, I18n.t("Override does not exist") unless override.present?
  end

  def validate_section_exists(section)
    raise PeerReview::SectionNotFoundError, I18n.t("Section does not exist") unless section.present?
  end

  def validate_course_exists(course)
    raise PeerReview::CourseNotFoundError, I18n.t("Course does not exist") unless course.present?
  end

  def validate_student_ids_required(student_ids)
    if student_ids.nil? || student_ids == "" || student_ids.to_s.strip.empty? || (student_ids.is_a?(Array) && student_ids.empty?)
      raise PeerReview::StudentIdsRequiredError, I18n.t("Student ids are required")
    end
  end

  def validate_student_ids_in_course(student_ids)
    raise PeerReview::StudentIdsNotInCourseError, I18n.t("Student ids are not in course") if student_ids.blank?
  end

  def validate_set_type_supported(set_type, services)
    unless services.key?(set_type)
      supported_types = services.keys.join(", ")
      raise PeerReview::SetTypeNotSupportedError,
            I18n.t("Set type '%{set_type}' is not supported. Supported types are: %{supported_types}", set_type:, supported_types:)
    end
  end

  def validate_group_assignment_required(assignment)
    unless assignment.group_category_id
      raise PeerReview::GroupAssignmentRequiredError, I18n.t("Must be a group assignment to create group overrides")
    end
  end

  def validate_group_exists(group)
    raise PeerReview::GroupNotFoundError, I18n.t("Group does not exist") unless group.present?

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