Yes. LightSail easily fits into both 1:1 and shared device models, and we have numerous schools using LightSail in a shared-device scenario. Because every student has a unique login, many students can access LightSail sharing the same device over the course of a school day. We would be glad to share advice about how schools can integrate LightSail into any hardware scenario.
1. Confirm your browser version with the steps below:
2. Describe the error and how it occurred
3. When you receive an error message, please note the following:
4. What is the username(s) of the teacher(s) or student(s) getting this error?
5. Did the error or problem happen to 1 or more students / teacher accounts?
6. Were there any red checkpoints when running the HealthCheck? Please list them or provide a screenshot
The health check is a very useful tool when using LightSail HTML. Instead of testing your internet speed locally, it checks your connections and speeds with our NY server. It will tell you the internet download speed and if you are successfully connecting to all ports required for HTML to work.
We recommend that each student has over 5 mb download speed on their device. If the speed is lower than 5 mb download, LightSail will not work properly.
For an iPad or iPhone, you must use Safari. For all other devices, you must use Chrome.
For Chrome or iPad please make sure that you always upgrade to the newest version. For iPad the minimum version should be 12.2 and for Chrome the minimum should be 70. Confirm your browser version with the steps below:
Please note that we do not support Mozilla Firefox.
Any device that uses Chrome including Chromebooks, Android Tablets and Phones. All Apple devices including iPads, Iphones, and Macbooks. You can also use Edge as long as its Version 87.0.664.52 or above.
If you can hardwire your devices you will have the best internet connection. However, for Wi-Fi you need the router to be relatively close to the students preferably, in the classroom. If you have any questions, please have your IT representative reach out to LS support via email, chat or phone.
You will need to whitelist (to allow the user to access LightSail) the required URLs and ports for LightSail to work properly.
Your device may have Ad Blockers turned on. This can cause issues for LightSail to work properly because it blocks certain ports and URLs that LightSail needs. Many Ad Blockers allow you to enable specific sites through their system. To test whether your Ad Blocker is causing the OFFLINE error, turn off the Ad Blocker and try to log into LightSail. To see which ports and URLs are needed for LightSail, go to the question above - What is the Health Check? – and click Use the Health Check Now from a device that needs to work with LightSail.
We don’t recommend using a firewall that is also a proxy (A proxy firewall is a network security system that protects network resources by filtering messages at the application layer. A proxy firewall may also be called an application firewall or gateway firewall) as this can cause issues when LightSail upgrades to newer versions.
This is ok and LightSail will work with a VPN.
We don’t recommend using guest mode on a Chromebook. The guest mode uses limited hard drive storage which would affect your use on LightSail. The memory gets erased each time the user logs out and any data gets lost (i.e. if you checked out a book).
Yes, clearing cache can help solve many browser issues. Please click on the following links on how to clear cache for your device. Please note that if you clear cache, LightSail will take a bit longer to load the first time.
You can also test using incognito (incognito does not save cache)
LightSail requires at least 20 mb available storage. To confirm how much storage your Chrome browser has allocated, please reach out to your IT representative or contact LightSail support
Confirm your Chrome Version. You should have the latest version installed. To find your Chrome version do the following:
1) Click on the Menu icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
2) Click on About Google Chrome.
3) Your Chrome browser version number can be found here.
4) With an IT representative assistance, check the user profile in the google admin console. Compare a working user vs the non working user. Ensure that you do not select “keep cookies for the duration of the session”.
Please contact your IT representative to ensure that you can properly connect to the below Host and Ports
Still have questions? Please email us at [email protected] or call us at 1.866.876.7323.