Losing audio just from first and sometimes second slides
Jul 26, 2018
After making a few changes and additions, I'm essentially republishing a presentation that I've used for years. Using Audio Editor, I removed one sentence of audio from the first slide. It appears fine in Audio Editor. I didn't touch the audio on the second slide.
The first time I published, there was no audio on the first slide. I checked, and it still appeared in Audio Editor. I tried to reimport the audio and then after publishing, there was no audio on the first and second slides.
In the next five attempts, I have tried removing the audio from the first slide completely (then there was still no audio on slide two), reimporting both (slide one had no audio, but slide two did), and a variety of other things. I am stumped. I can accept having no audio on the first slide, but need it at least on the second.
And yes, I am working on my local drive and there are no odd characters on these slides; they are as boring as can be!
Thanks in advance for any help.
15 Replies
Info to add: I'm now working on a different presentation, and the same thing is happening on Slide 1. However, if I hit pause and then play, the audio picks up where it was supposed to be at that point in the slide. I'm not sure if this would have happened with the other presentation too; I don't think I tried it.
(I have looked at this article to check if any applies to my project; it doesn't. https://articulate.com/support/article/audio-is-missing-or-lost)
Update!
Presentation #2 now works. I inserted a blank slide in the front, hoping that one would be the silent one. I made it less than one second. That alone did NOT solve the problem. (The new slide 2 which used to be the first slide still had no audio).
Then I reimported the audio onto the new slide 2 from my local drive, and also deleted the old output folder and somehow it seems to work now!
I'll try that odd series of steps for the first presentation. Leaving this thread open in case it helps someone in the future.
Hi Amy,
What a strange issue you ran into! Kudos to you for finding that workaround. 🌟 I'm curious -- did you see these audio issues when you previewed inside of Presenter?
If it only happened after the content was published, did you host the published output on a web server or learning management system?
Thanks for responding, Alyssa. I don't have the issues when I preview the slides. Right after I publish and click the "view your presentation" (or whatever it says) and it opens in Chrome, I can't hear the audio. Similarly, when our tech person tries viewing online to test it, he can't hear it. If we hit Pause or attempt to rewatch, it plays just fine.
Once we posted it to the places our audience access it, it's worked for our four staff who have tried it.
It's now happening to a fourth presentation. I am going to zip it and send it in, although I have a crazy feeling someone on your end won't be able to replicate the problem - that's usually my issue!
Hi Amy,
I'd always recommend uploading to your server or LMS vs. testing it locally, as the latter could have you trapped behind some security or browser restrictions that would prevent proper playback. Since it did work for the staff who viewed it online, it sounds like you'll be in good shape going forward.
If you're not ready to put something on your live site, take a look at using Amazon S3, upload to Tempshare, or even SCORM Cloud for LMS content.
Let us know if you need anything else, and our team is always happy to test even against those crazy feelings. 😉 It's a good way to narrow down what's happening.
I am having this same issue for multiple courses. Audio works in the preview but when I publish it and then click on the HTML5 file, it opens in my Chrome browser but no audio. If I press the pause button on the player and then the play button, the audio starts.
Hey Jessica!
Were you able to test the published output in Tempshare or even SCORM Cloud, like Ashley mentioned? Those are both free and easy to use. And if you'd prefer us to help with the testing, just send your file our way!
I'm having the same issue where the audio is included on the first slide, the timeline plays but you can't hear the audio until you restart the slide. It happens intermittently an not on every presentation.
Hi David!
Can you tell me a little more about what's happening in your course?
I am seeing this now as well and I am pretty sure this is because Chrome is restricting the automatic playback of audio without user interaction. In Storyline this was addressed by adding a play button overlay. Has this not been addressed in Presenter as well?
Here is the documentation of the issue: https://articulate.com/support/article/Storyline-and-Studio-HTML5-Audio-Won-t-Play-in-Google-Chrome-66-and-Later
[Update]: I now see that it suggests the issue was addressed also for Studio '13 and Studio 360... but we are publishing in the latest version of Studio 360 and the play button overlay is not coming up in Chrome 71.
Yes, they put out an update for Presenter in October or November that added the play button overlay. I assume that meant I wasn't the only one having the problem - perhaps just the first to discover it.
I think that this no longer works correctly in Chrome 71. I'm publishing with the newest version of Articulate, but the play button overlay isn't showing.
Thanks so much for giving us a heads up on this, Will. Our team is looking into this as we speak, and we'll share an update as soon as we can!
Hi Amy and Will,
We added support for the latest autoplay changes in Google Chrome 71+, so learners see a play button when they launch or resume a course that has audio or video on the first slide in Studio 360 Update 21. You can find more details linked here.
Yes, I saw that. Thank you. It certainly made me feel better that it wasn't just me!
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