Corrupt ppta file

Apr 12, 2013

Raylene Hawrysh
By Raylene Hawrysh

I have been having a lot of trouble with corrupt ppta files. I have read in the forums that my files should be kept locally on my computer so I assume that these problems might be from working with the files across the network. I have since moved the ppt and ppta files to my C: drive and have things working fine now.

However, I am not always able to work at my own computer because when I narrate, I need to move to a quieter environment. My question is: What is the best way for me to move the files from the hard drive on my computer to the hard drive on the computer in the room where I am doing the narration? Should I put them on a USB stick and copy them? Or move them to the network and then copy them down to the hard drive in the room where I am narrating?

Thanks for all your help! BTW - I am a new user to Articulate Presenter and find the forums and community blogs extremely helpful in resolving other issues I have had.

6 Replies
Christine Hendrickson
11 years ago04/12/13 at 11:20 am (UTC)

Hi there, Raylene. Welcome to E-Learning Heroes!

Good questions! :) You are 100% correct in that you need to make sure you're working with local files. However, this is for when you're modifying, publishing or testing your content.

When you just need to store the files, it's OK to store them on a network drive or USB drive. Just try to be sure you move the files over to the hard drive you're using when you're actually working on the project. 

Another option would be to create a Presenter Package and email it to yourself. For more information on how to create a package, check out the following article: 

Articulate Presenter Package

I hope this information helps! Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Christine

Raylene Hawrysh
11 years ago04/12/13 at 12:21 pm (UTC)

Thanks for your reply Christine. I'm still having some problems though. Just as I thought everything was working fine again, next time I tried to preview a slide I got the message "Presenter was unable to open project file" . I tried a few things and eventually I was able to preview the slide again (I'm not even sure what fixed the problem). Then, I got the following message when trying to publish " Unable to get PowerPoint reference. Please close this dialog and restart it." I closed the dialog and publish worked fine. 

I am now trying to create an Articulate Package and there is no progress whatsoever, the Status window is completely blank (i.e. no progress bar even showing). The title bar says it is Not Responding. Also, whenever I get one of these error messages, the Windows Task Manager shows the Articulate Presenter UI as Not Responding.

Just to summarize, early on in the project when I was moving from computer to computer, I copied the ppt and ppta files to a USB stick and then copied them to the hard drive on the new computer. I think your message said this was fine to do so I'm not sure where things went wrong.

Thanks again!

Raylene Hawrysh
11 years ago04/12/13 at 1:09 pm (UTC)

Just an update.... I copied the ppt and ppta  files from my hard drive to USB stick and put them on the hard drive in the room where I do the narration. Everything worked perfectly - the project published fine and I was able to create an Articulate Package in about 10 seconds!

I'm now wondering whether the problem is isolated to my compuer and if I should have Articulate Studio re-installed on my computer?

Thanks again.

Christine Hendrickson
11 years ago04/12/13 at 1:48 pm (UTC)

Hi Raylene,

Thanks very much for the update! Sounds like it could be an issue with the installation on the original machine. 

Can you try following the steps in the article below to troubleshoot this, please?

Unexpected or erratic behavior in Articulate Studio '09

Let me know if you see any improvements after trying that.

Thanks!

Christine

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