Audio Cuts out on random slides
Oct 16, 2013
HI there. We have an issue where the audio cuts out on random slides. For example: In one upload slides 5 and 8, the audio will cutout half way through. But it will always be slides 5 and 8 that cutout each time I replay the scorm presentation. When I expire this scorm and re-upload a new version, the audio in one or two other slides will cut out and the original slides 5 and 8 will work. I've tried viewing these on multiple browsers and the same slides the audio will cutout. Each new version that I try, different slides have audio that cuts out.
When I Upload the scorm package to scorm cloud for testing, there are no errors. When I play the scorm locally on my machine, the audio works great on every slide.
I bumped this issue up to our server support team and they believe the issue is the content build. I can't seem to get this issue figured out and it's happening on multiple scorms that contain a lot of audio.
Many thanks for your time.
--Justin
55 Replies
Hi Justin,
Sorry to hear about the problems you're experiencing. You mentioned everything played as normal within SCORM Cloud? That's an industry standard testing method, and if it's able to work there, I'd suspect that there is something happening on the side of your LMS that is preventing the audio from playing and not something in the file itself. Are you able to share that posted version with your LMS team so that they can see it is working?
We're happy to test it as well, if you'd like to share the .story file here or with our Support team we can test it as well (likely within SCORM Cloud and/or Articulate Online).
Thank you very much for your response, Ashley. I will upload the native file now.
--Justin
Thanks Justin, I see where you submitted your case (# 00362631 for my reference) and I'll follow along.
Hi Justin,
I see that Jayem was able to test your file and everything worked as expected, so you're now able to share that information with your LMS team.
We are also having that issue here - is it possible that you could post what was done to resolve the problem? We are using Storyline 2, and other postings similar to this I've found does not follow up after the file was submitted to the support team.
Hi Kathrine!
In Justin's case above, we were not able to replicate the issue in SCORM Cloud, so he took this information back to his LMS team to review.
SCORM Cloud is a tool that we like to utilize to see if the issue lies with the project or the LMS. If you are able to replicate your issue in SCORM Cloud, we would want to take a closer look and you would are welcome to share your .story file with us here as well.
I get this same issue frequently in Storyline 2. The problem is detectable within storyline itself most of the time (before exporting to LMS), and I'm wondering if there is a known reason for this? Currently I have to meticulously preview every slide of my courses to make sure the audio doesn't drop before sending to clients.
Hi Nate!
As you can see here, we were unable to replicate the issue. Another user reported something similar here and it was resolved.
If you have a file you would like our team to take a look at, feel free to share.
I've already fixed all the broken files myself. It would just be nice to prevent it from happening in the first place.
I understand Nate. Please share with us if you run into this in the future so that we could take a look.
Any updates to this? I am having the issue with no possible solutions available.
Thanks!
I wish!
Oh no Kathrine, I didn't realize you were still experiencing issues. I see where you reached out to our support team previously and worked with John. Looks like he also did a web conference with your IT perhaps? We didn't hear anything back, so I'm sorry to hear that you're still having difficulty.
I'd encourage both you and Nicolle to reach out to our support team here so that we can take a look and understand the issues that may be happening and help you out.
I'm having the same problem. I just uploaded my files as a case. Do we have a fix for this yet? It's happened on a few courses lately. It's random which slides are affected. The audio file is complete, but for some reason, the audio just cuts out near the end of the slide, even while the rest of the animation continues on that slide.
Hey Beth,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing your file with the support team.
It looks like it's been system specific for each user, so working directly with the support team is probably the best bet.
You should be hearing from someone soon via e-mail.
I am having the same issue. Audio cuts out for no apparent reason on random slides while reviewing the course published as a CD file. When I publish into my LMS it runs fine. This issue is making it difficult to have others review the course prior to publishing into the LMS.
Hi Christine,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing that you are running into an issue as well.
As mentioned above, the issues all seem to stem from system-specific issues.
Since you mentioned that it's not happening in your LMS, but only when publishing to CD, I'm curious if the file name/path length may be the culprit.
I have the same issue! The audio cuts on random slide while animation is running. I am using Storyline 360. Please help!
Hi Hanta,
Thank you for reaching out! To make sure you get the most up-to-date guidance, could you help with these details?
If you're comfortable with sharing the .story file publicly, I'm happy to test it. If there is private information, use this private upload link to share it with our Support team.
We are having the same problem recently in SL3. The course works find in IE, but now that we are using Chrome or MS EDGE Chromium, we are experiencing a problem with the audio cutting out mid-slide. I filed a case, but am hoping that maybe someone has a quick fix?
Hi Beth,
Thanks for reaching out, and good call to get that case started! I see my teammate, Georvy, was able to test your file and provide next steps.
Please let him know if your LMS can find a solution for the audio cutting out, as he was able to test it successfully in SCORM Cloud.
I've been having this issue for years and I just keep replacing the audio files over and over again and republishing until I get a full working version of the course. It's been a while since I've had to make a new course with audio, but I just got a request for a course with full narration. The course requestor recorded all of their slides as individual MP3 files, and now the problem is back again. Each time I publish, different pages drop the audio randomly, part the way through the slide. If I edit or re-record the slide, it will often work, but then another page will drop the audio randomly somewhere in the slide. It's like playing whack-a-mole.
I'm testing all of these courses from an intranet web server outside of any LMS. Just copying the exported files to the web server and launching story.html. I can't share the source file because it contains sensitive company information, so I'm not sure my feedback here serves any purpose other than to confirm that the issue still "plagues" some users of Storyline in November of 2020. (Pun intended.)
Specs:
Articulate 360
Storyline v3.43.22859.0
Browsers tested: Edge, Internet Explorer, Chrome
Thanks, Michael. I appreciate your feedback and I took a look at the cases filed for some of the users above and it does not look like we have been able to track down the culprit yet.
I understand that you cannot share the file, but one thing I'm curious about is how long the audio file name may be. Once published, are these remaining under the 260 character limit? I have seen this cause an issue with missing audio previously.
Hi Leslie. Thanks for the quick reply. The audio file names were simply "slide 01.mp3" etc. None of the file names were more than 10 characters. The most odd thing is that when I republish the course, some pages no longer have the audio drop-out issue, while others that didn't have the issue begin dropping audio. I've tried adjusting the audio quality to the maximum 160kbps bitrate on publish and then dropped it to 128 kbps, and this doesn't seem to have any predictable effect. Also, it doesn't seem to affect audio that is recorded directly with Storyline through the microphone - only imported audio. Everything works fine in audio recorded within the editor.
One thing I've noticed in older courses, is a distinct digital "chirp" sound in some of the audio files that preceded an audio drop-out in the published file. It was as if some digital bits got lost when the storyline file itself was saved. These weren't present in the initial audio files, but seem to have crept in as errors over time. I have one particular course that seems to drop-out audio every single time I go in to edit and publish a new version of the course. Often I'll go in to investigate the cause and find another tiny digital chirp has appeared in one of the audio files. I'm not sure if any of this is helpful in uncovering the mystery, but it's just things I've noted over time.
Hi Michael!
Thank you for sharing this information with us! I understand that you can't share your file, but I'd still like our Support Engineers to investigate the snag.
I've started a case on your behalf, and you should hear from our team shortly!