Narration recorded in Articulate doesn't play in sync animations

Hi Maureen,

The first thing to check is that you're working off your local drive, and not a network or USB drive. That can cause erratic behavior. If you can check that off the list, have a look at this article to see if it can resolve the issue:http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=115

Please let me know if that does the trick, and good luck!

yes working off local drive and I can record and play back via preview but no audio play back in articulate sync animation and audio editor (I can sse the audio tracks)Not the problem in article, but thanks.

Hi Maureen,

Sorry for the issues you're experiencing. If you'd like to send your files to us, we can have a close look and do our best to resolve it.

http://upload.articulate.com/

And if you want to, come back here and leave your case number so I can keep a personal eye on it.

Thanks!

What was the resolution for this?  I'm having the same issue.

Hi Sonya!

Here is the solution that was shared with Maureen in her support ticket:

The RealTek sound device was using Enhanced sound options for the installed playback device. Disabling these enhanced features allowed the audio to be heard inside of Presenter when playing back. 

Notes: 

1. There was some odd behavior exhibited with your sound device where the the Bass fill option disappeared after disabling. In addition, using the playback test included with the sound device, no sound was heard in the sub woofer or center speaker channels. 

2. The USB mic did not allow us to adjust the mic input level and would revert to a default setting when revisiting. 

3. The audio would stutter when played back in Presenter. This is the side effect of a system not able to "keep up". Although the stutter can be heard when playing back, this is **not** included in the recording. Deleting temp files and performing a system defrag might help this issue. 

If this does not assist or is not applicable to you, please reach out so that we can further assist. You are also welcome to work with our support team here if you wish.

Thanks for the response.

I can hear it when I play it in Preview and it plays fine in Adobe Audition and even Windows Media Player. The ONLY place it won’t play is in the Articulate Sync window.

Initially I thought it was the file, but since it plays fine everywhere else, that must not be the case.

I’ve been doing a VERY time consuming and NON-precise workaround of listening to it in another application while sync’ing and clicking the sync button (which is playing but silent) to align my animations to the sound. When I play back, the animations are sync’d.

This is REALLY a problem and has pushed me past my deliverable date.

Sonya
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Hi Sonya! Thanks for the additional details. Are you able to share the Articulate Package for me to take a look? If you need to share privately, you may do so here.

On another note, responding to the forums via e-mail attaches your signature. You are welcome to pop in and edit if needed.

Unfortunately, I can't share the file, but I can tell you that there isn't a lot of animation on most of the slides in question.  (Thanks for the heads-up on the sig)

I do see a similar thread where users in the past could not get audio from Adobe Audition to work in the Sync Animation feature, but we were never able to work with any of these users either.

I'm pretty sure Audition isn't the problem.  I'm not having this problem with any other courses and I use Audition for all of my audio editing.  I've repeatedly had SOME type of quirky issues with Articulate though... this is just the latest.  Thanks!

I know you've done a lot of manual work to get this to work and are probably finished trying to diagnose this course, but for future reference:

If you are only having problems in one project and not with the software in general, we advise:

1. Open a new, blank presentation in PowerPoint.
2. Go to the Home tab, click the drop-down arrow beside New Slide, and choose Reuse Slides.
3. In the Reuse Slides panel, click the Browse button and choose Browse File.
4. Browse to your original PowerPoint file and click Open.
5. At the bottom of the Reuse Slides panel, mark the box to Keep source formatting.
6. Right-click the first slide in the Reuse Slides panel and select Insert All Slides.
7. Save the new presentation and republish.

Note: Articulate resources, such as audio and video, will need to be inserted again into the new presentation. You may need to export the narration from your original presentation, then import it into the new presentation.

Hi Leslie!

Yes, I'm aware of that "fix" and have used it before, thank you!  I've got 136 slides in THIS course, so that wasn't the most "efficient" option since I'm already in a time-sensitive situation.

It's perplexing because there are several audio files being used in this course.  This is the only one with a problem, so my initial belief was that it's the file.  However, I can use it in other projects and applications.  I only have a problem with it in the Articulate Sync feature... bizarre.  It was suggested that I convert the file to .wav to "re-calibrate" the channels.  Didn't work either. 

Although it probably won't help me with this project, it would be great to figure out what's going on for future reference.

Hi Sonya,

Thanks for the additional information and update. Since it's just that one file and only when syncing, as Leslie mentioned it's something we'd need to take a look at to further investigate. If you're unable to share publicly, the link she shared above goes direct to our support team and they're able to sign an NDA for confidential courses. 

You also mentioned converting it to a WAV file, but did you check that it was to 16 bit 44 KHZ PCM WAV ? We support awide range of audio file formats (AAC, AIF, AIFF, M4A, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA),but not all codecs and bitrates are supported - so that's the option we recommend. 

If you need any other assistance, please let us know here or by reaching out to our support team.