Desperate for help - issues with sound not recording

Jun 20, 2013

Joshua van Gestel
By Joshua van Gestel

Good afternoon,

I am using articulate for the first time and am already hitting a hurdle.

I am having problems recording through the 'record narration' function... before I outline the issue I can confirm my microphone is working as I can record sound through the 'audio editor' (I have been able to record and play back through this function).

The issue I am having is this...

I open 'record narration' and I select start recording. The timer then starts (suggesting sound and animations are recording) and the 'next animation', pause and 'resume animation' buttons all seem to work. However, as soon as I press the stop button or 'stop recording' button the counter returns to zero and the 'start recording' button appears again as if no sound and no animations have been recorded.

I need this to work urgently and would appreciate any help. I will resort to just using the 'audio editor' if needed, but being able to sync the animations with the narration was a key reason for purchasing this software.

Kind regards,

Josh

5 Replies
Christine Hendrickson
almost 11 years ago06/21/13 at 7:20 am (UTC)

Welcome to the community, Josh!

Sorry to hear about the trouble you're running into with this. Hopefully we'll be able to get this all cleared up for you :)

First, please make sure you're working with and recording to a local project file:

  • Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. 
  • You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).
  • Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names (this includes spaces and underscores).

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

Please take a look at the suggestions provided in the following article and see if this resolves the problem:

Articulate Support - Unable to record audio

Let me know if you still have trouble with the audio after following those steps.

Thanks and welcome again, Josh!

Joshua van Gestel
almost 11 years ago06/21/13 at 5:49 pm (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply Christine.

I have confirmed that the file is on my C:/, and I have also renamed it to ensure the name length is short and includes no special characters. I have also confirmed that the microphone on the laptop is working, noting I can successfully record sound through the 'audio editor' in Articulate, just not through the 'record narration' function.

As further clarification, when I press 'start recording' on the 'record narration' function the timer starts to count. As soon as I press 'stop recording' the timer resets to '00.00.00.0' and the message 'press start recording to record your narration' appears alongside. It is not just the sound that is not being recorded... none of the timings of animations are being recorded either (i.e. when I use the 'next annotation' button).

This isnt to me a sound recording issue, nor does it appear to be a file naming issue, but rather something that the software itself should be doing but isnt.

I thank you again for your prompt reply and do hope you can help. Again, if this cannot be fixed I will be forced to simply record everything through the 'audio editor', Not an ideal solution by any means, but the only one that seems to work.

Kind regards,

Josh

Christine Hendrickson
almost 11 years ago06/24/13 at 6:28 am (UTC)

Good morning John. I hope you had a great weekend!

I totally understand - thank you very much for trying that out and for providing the additional information. 

The reason I wanted to confirm you were working locally is because I have seen the same situation come up with non-local files. Obviously, that isn't the situation for you, but it's always best to try to check that first since working off of external sources can cause some really, really strange problems with projects.

Since you are working locally and you've already tested out the mic, I think it may be an issue with the installation. If you haven't already, please make sure that you're working with the 32-bit installation of Office/PowerPoint. More info on that here. 

If you are using the 32-bit installation, it might be best to follow the troubleshooting steps outlined in the following article:

Unexpected or erratic behavior in Articulate Studio '09

If you're still unable to get this working, please go ahead and contact our support team. They'll be able to take a closer look and see what's causing the issue, provide some suggestions and hopefully get this to where you won't need to resort to the audio editor.

Articulate Support - Submit a Support Case

If you do submit a case, you'll receive an automatic response with a case number. Please try to share that number with me, if you can, so I can follow the progress and share the solution here on the forums.

Thanks very much!

Christine

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.