Technical support for BSF class members

Sign-in/Login Issues

Password Issues

99% of sign in issues are due to incorrect passwords. Becuase the website is new, your best approach when there with a password or login issue is just to request a password reset. If you are prompted by your browser to update your password, please do!

NOTE: If you have or had a BSFOnline account you might try your BSFOnline password as well. The two websites will eventually be combined and the sites were recently were updated to share login credentials.

Always prompted for password

Your password is saved in two places: 1) In the BSF member database. 2) In your browsers "cache" or "password vault". #1 is handled by mybsf.org. But, #2 is the responsibilty of your browser's password manager (or other password manager if you are using one). Sometimes, the password vault or cache gets corrupted so that even when you update your password and your browser prompts you to save it, the next time you go to mybsf.org you are told your password is incorrect. That may mean that your browsers password vault/cache is corrupt. If that seems to be the case, go to the password manager in your browser (some Apple deveices manage this separately from the browser). Find the entry for mybsf.org in the password manager and REMOVE the entry. Don't just blank the password, remove the entry. The next time that you attempt to sign in you should be prompted by your browser to save the password. Do it!

Remember me - losing it's memory?

The "Remember Me" option saves your EMAIL address at the site in a cookie (which is why you want cookies enabled). It does NOT save your password. Your browser saves your password in the password manager. Generally, you only use remember me once, to initially save your email address. But, if you CHANGE your email address, then re-check the "Remember me" checkbox so that your NEW email address is saved. If you share a computer or device with another BSF user it's recommended not to use "Remember me" since only one email address is ever saved.

Missing Resources

Resource access 101

Let's start with a basic overview of how things work. Anyone with an email address can create an account at mybsf.org. If you create an account but are not yet a member of a class, you are entered as an "Account holder" which means you will have access to all the resources on mybsf.org EXCEPT notes and lectures. Only an active class member will have access to notes and lectures. If you are identifed as a Member you will see that listed under your name in the upper righthand corner of the page after you sign in. If you don't see "Member" listed, there is an issue with your email address not matching the class information. In that case, check with your class administrator to make sure your correct email is used OR just update your profile with the correct email address after you sign in or create an account.

Lecture and notes missing

Read "Resource access 101" above! This is almost ALWAYS a mis-match between the email address used to create the mybsf.org account and what the class has as the email address in the class database. Was it mentioned that the email addresses have to match exactly? Capitalization doesn't matter but everything else does. So, for example, GMail will allow you to use either a period or not in your email address. So, you might create the mybsf.org account using firstname.lastname@gmail.com but when you communicate to your class you send the email address as firstnamelastname@gmail.com. GMail doesn't care, it'll treat them both the same but is DOES make a difference at mybsf.org so you'd end up as an Account Holder only, not a member, if you used the email address interchangibly that way. Do you see a difference between l and 1 ? Subtle, huh? (lower case L and the number 1). How about I and l ? (Capital i and lower case L) Again subtle. How about 0 and O ? Depending on the font used, it can be really hard to catch subtle differences. So, if you are a member having issues and contact your class administrator for help, tell them to copy and paste your email address into the class database OR change email address on your profile. It will prevent many mis-understandings.

Lecture on the wrong lesson

This one is easy. The original format for a physical copy of the lesson was to have the notes from the prior lesson combined with the questions for the current lesson. That is no longer the case. For example lesson 11 notes and lesson 11 questions and the lesson 11 lecture and other resources all appear on a page with the title "Lesson 11". HOWEVER, that can be confusing when your group meets to discuss lesson 11 becuase the notes refernced in the first days questions are for lesson 10 AND the lecture for lesson 11 may not be posted yet.
That CAN be confusing but just remember that that is currently how it works.

Other miscellaneous lecture/lesson issues

There are several other resource related issues that you might encounter:

Language settings and missing lectures

There can be issues between mismatches on between the spoken language of the class and the spoken language you select in mybsf.org. If you are a Spanish speaker and attend a class whose spoken language is English, you might enjoy listening to the audio notes in Spanish. So, you change your spoken language setting to "Spanish". But since the Lecture was given in English, it will no longer display. It will "disappear". That is because of the mismatch between the class spoken language and the spoken language setting you have chosen. For non-native English speakers you attend an English speaking class, just remember that tip!

Even written language selections can impact the resources displayed on a page. Not all resources are available in all languages. So, if something seems to be missing, change your language settings back to English temporarily and see if they reappear.

Lecture uploads

Lecture uploads 101

This is a huge subject and can take a while to fully understand. But, lets first start with the basics: 1) BSF uses an outside company to handle the lecture upload and processing. BSF is not their only customer but it may be their largest. You probably get a little sense of that at the beginning of the class year when everyone starts uploading lectures all at once and the website get slow and unresponsive. Be kind! The folks at BSF get just as frustrated as you when the process bogs down. If the upload fails, or is slow, it might just be something BSF cannot control at the moment. Best approach is to try again later (if possible). This has been less of an issue during the pandemic but when classes start to meet in person again and a lecture is actually delivered on-site on day of class, it might be harder to wait. The tips below might help you get a faster, more complete upload.

Be kind by uploading SMALL files

OK. So why do you want small?

#1 is because a small file will upload more quickly.
#2 Is because it will be processed more quickly.
#3 What you upload is what is used to download. So, if you upload that beautiful UHD quality video that is 2 GB in size, guess what is downloaded onto that tiny mobile device when it is downloaded? Yep, ALL 2 GB! So, be kind, go small.
#4 Most lecture videos are viewed on the small screen, like a tablet or smartphone. High resolution isn't needed on those kind of devices.

Sure, when classes start back up on site and you have a satellite group that projects the lecture on a BIG screen, then that HD quality will be a plus! (but you may want to give the HD original to the CA and still downsize the uploaded file).

The world is upside down!

No Apple-bashing but this is pretty unique to Apple devices. That is because it is easy to flip the phone or tablet without realizing it. And when you play it back it looks fine! Even when you transfer the file to a PC or Mac it looks fine! But you upload it and it appears upside down. Theres no need to go into the technical details, but the orientation of the recording device is stored as part of the "metadata" of the video. PCs, Macs and most tablets usually have a "native" player installed that will recognize the orientation and auto-magically rotate the video so it will play correctly. You can even download an upside down video and have it play correctly. But, the player on the mybsf.org website has no such capability. It just plays it as-is e.g upside down. The fix is to process the file BEFORE you upload it and rotate it 180 degrees. Take a look at the Lecture processing tip.

Pre-processing lectures before uploading

There are several reasons you may want to "compress", pre-process or "transcode" a lecture video:

One word for you: Handbrake. Handbrake is a free tool that can do most of what you may want to do to "fix" a video. You can also take a look at VLC. VLC is also free but is a bit more tricky to use. The good news with both Handbrake and VLC is that they have great tutorials online and plenty of online resources to help you.

How small should the video be? 300-400mb should be OK. The best way is just to focus on the size of the video "window" (keep it small). Handbrake uses the concept of "presets" that take most of the guesswork out of the process. Look for presets and then choose General and something like "Fast 480p30" and look for the checkbox next to "Web Optimized" and choose that option (you might have to hunt for that setting on other tabs). Go ahead and run that process. You'll probably be amazed at how great it looks and how small the resulting file will be (but it CAN take a LONG time to process it on your PC/Mac),