Flash communication question

Jun 20, 2011

John Boloian
By John Boloian

We are having a problem with maybe 5% of our users, with Presenter and Quizmaker content, version 9, in our LMS. I have questions regarding how communication occurs from both these types of content and the LMS.

Is FSCOMMAND used to send the SCORM 1.2 information?

When we look at a problem and successful set of completion calls using HTTP watch, the difference we see is the problem POST data does not have lesson_status, interaction information, but only exit and session information. The successful users have all this information (interaction information for Quizmaker modules).

So my question is, how is this information sent - is it when the user exits the end and the Exit --> Exit Now button press sends the data using fscommand?

Another piece of information on this one: The Exit Now button doesn't close the module out. It does nothing.

Another piece: When the affected users try this test:

http://www.articulatetest.com/chrome/fscommand.html

 

It does not work for them (does not increment). Is this related?

 

The affected users have this system information:

 

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; MS-RTC LM 8; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

We've looked at everything (we think) and cannot find the answer to this issue. As said, this happens only for about 5% (so far) of users, and consistently with Articulate products. It is not happening for other non-flash content (such as Lectora).

Any help on this would be great.

12 Replies
Steve Flowers
almost 13 years ago06/20/11 at 2:49 pm (UTC)

Hi John,

What is the version of Flash player in use for the users encountering problems? It sounds like there's definitely a communication problem between Flash and the browser. The Exit button triggers a javascript function. If that's not working then something is shutting down communication. Some versions of the Flash player have issues.

Dave Newgass
almost 13 years ago06/21/11 at 1:56 am (UTC)

Phil Mayor said:

Hi John

a lot of corporate clients have their javascript security set so it disables the exit button, we normally remove the exit button and give instructions to close the browser window

Phil


Hey Phil,

Will this report properly to the LMS?  I have always wondered if my clients close their browser vs using the exit button that it will properly bookmark their current slide so they can return to it.

Cheers,

Dave

John Boloian
almost 13 years ago06/21/11 at 8:27 am (UTC)

Hi - The completion issue exists no matter how the user exits the course (from content Exit or browser X). This is a corporate internet, however the settings are fixed to allow javascript and script access. We are investigating the affected computers, so far everything looks normal.

I mentioned above the information that isn't being sent, here are the specifics I'm seeing:

cmi.core.exit IS being sent

cmi.core.session_time IS being sent

However, the important cmi.core.lesson_status is not being sent, as well as all the interaction data.

Justin Wilcox
almost 13 years ago06/21/11 at 9:36 am (UTC)

Hi John. If you enable the debug log, you should be able to see exactly what's being sent from Articulate to the LMS:

http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=936

I'd also suggest running through the steps outlined in this article to troubleshoot your issue:

http://www.articulate.com/blog/9-ways-to-troubleshoot-articulate-lms-issues/

John Boloian
almost 13 years ago06/21/11 at 2:32 pm (UTC)

Hi, we enabled debug and ran  different articulate courses on the problem machines.

We have also run this in the Scorm Cloud, and the logs are the same - at some point, the problem computer does not set completion status to "completed" wherease non-problem do. I have the logs below:

1) Non-problem: http://cloud.scorm.com/sc/guest/ViewDebugLog?logId=0b2a92de-19ad-4a85-ac01-a9332ea2798c&courseTitle=Financial+Exploitation+of+Vulnerable+Adults

2) Problem: http://cloud.scorm.com/sc/guest/ViewDebugLog?logId=ccfaedd4-bbdc-4773-85b8-31712bde212f&courseTitle=Financial+Exploitation+of+Vulnerable+Adults

Should this be submitted as a case to Articulate, or can I start one here?

John Boloian
almost 13 years ago06/27/11 at 1:00 pm (UTC)

Well, I've been back and forth with support, and no luck getting any detailed information about what Flash and Articulate is doing, so it was suggested I post it here.

Anyone have any input on what is happening from within the flash SWF in Articulate and the javascript - is the externalInterface being used?

I found this info here about potential problems, but nothing on settings or errors to look for: http://www.bigresource.com/FLASH-externalinterface-addcallback-works-for-FF-but-not-in-IE--eoEWpo0D0k.html

As I cannot get info from Articulate support / engineers, I'm posting here in the hopes of getting information from the community...

Zoran Jancic
over 12 years ago11/24/11 at 5:31 am (UTC)

Same problem here. How did you resolve the issue?

I noticed that on some computers fscommands are not beeing called so the student's results are not recorded. I tried with virtual machine running IE7, Flash player 7, fscommand not working. Upgraded IE7 to IE8 on the same machine and the problem disappeared, fscommands started to work. Then I tested on real machine running IE9, Flash player 11 and the problem appeared again. I'm confused :(

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