Engage Issues - a possible glitch and a firefox problem

Sep 25, 2011

Paul Smit
By Paul Smit

Hi guys,

I've been having a couple of problems with Engage on my new pc. The first is pre-publishing, and the second is post-publishing.  Before I explain what they are, you should know the usual details: Windows 7 64-bit, Office 2010, Studio '09.  I have also tried reinstalling Studio 09 without any luck.

So, problem one: I have engage open in order to create a new interaction or even to edit an existing one.  If I move off the window (minimise it or just click on another open program) and come back to Engage it doesn't display properly.  Functions, such as the captions and audio sections at the bottom are hidden or just not available and the media file that I've added there doesn't display either (see below - the oranage box is just covering the client's info):

It's sort of a rendering issue but for the entire window.  I've tried restoring the window down and found that it does help to show things again, but as you can see below, they're not quite right.

Any suggestions for fixing this?

Problem 2: I think this one is directly related to Firefox v6.0.2 (which is my preferred browser) on my PC.  Once I've published a course containing an engage interaction or published the interaction itself for web, I then try to preview it off my HDD and find that the interaction doesn't load.  Instead I get a black screen of sorts (see below):

I'm going to try reinstalling Firefox now, but I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this issue?

The same interaction runs without issues on other PCs (in Firefox) and works perfectly in IE9 on my PC.

Thanks for any help!

Paul

3 Replies
Brian Batt
over 12 years ago09/26/11 at 8:00 am (UTC)

Hi Paul,

Regarding your first issue, it sounds like you're using a previous release of Engage.  We fixed some redrawing issues on 64 bit machines in Update 7.  We're currently on Update 8:

http://www.articulate.com/support/engage09/kb/?p=96

Regarding the issue on Firefox, can you try installing the latest version of the Flash Player to see if that resolves the issue?

Paul Smit
over 12 years ago10/04/11 at 6:30 am (UTC)

Normal 0 false false false oNotPromoteQF /> EN-ZA X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

Hi Brian,

Thanks for getting back to me. 

Issue 1:

As far as I'm aware, I have the latestversion of Engage installed - V2.3.1103.112 according to the 'About'section.  I've also clicked on "Check for updates" and been told that there are none.  I'm still having the same redrawing issues though, regardless of interaction type.  I don't know ifmy monitor resolution is the issue (1920 x 1080)?  Any other suggestions?

Issue 2:
I've reinstalled Firefox, updated flash player, reinstalled Java...basically I tried everything I could think of and still had the black screen issue for Engage sections in a published course played in Firefox.  On one of the later courses that I published I saw the Articulate Engage Trial Mode Notice as well.  I submitted a support case about this a while back.  Your support guys weren't able to replicate the issue though.

Thankfully, I've found the solution to this problem!  It's one of those simple but not obvious ones:

When I set up my new PC, I reorganized how I rank my folders in windows explorer.  To get the important folders to the top of a folder list, I used hashes (#) at the start of the folder names.  It turns out that Firefox doesn't like the # in the folder name, and unfortunately all of my published material happens to be buried under one of these folders, so no matter which course i tried, the issue was always there.  IE doesn't seem to care about the hash symbols and I found it odd that Firefox only cared when it came to Engage (and Quizmaker) components.  Nevertheless, the problem is easily solved by removing the # from the folder names. Exclamation marks do the trick instead.

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