Presenter ribbon - Annotations-Translucency

May 02, 2011

Jane McGinnis
By Jane McGinnis

Learning the basics and publishing worked fine, until January. We have uninstalled Articulate and MS Office several times, but it doesn't help. Here's the problem: narration works fine, animations sync well, quizzes go in, but the moment we preview a section, or publish, we get "Microsoft Windows has encountered a serious problem with the Presenter ribbon add-in - do you want to disable?" The file is saved, but all narration and animations are gone. In addition (here's the mystery part), we now have a program running, annotations.exe, and a tasknamed "Annotations-Translucency"  is showing minimized to the toolbar. It cannot be maximized, it cannot be closed. We have not used the annotations function at any point, no reason for this to be open. We have to use Task Manager to get the annotations file to shut down, and the Articulate files have now been lost. We are not techies in our office, and even those who are aren't Articulate folks - so we simply cannot get it working again. Any help would be gratefully accepted...it's turning into a real nightmare for us.

19 Replies
Jane McGinnis
almost 13 years ago06/14/11 at 12:06 pm (UTC)

Brian, thanks to you and everyone for the helpful suggestions. We did all of them, and not only did it finally resolve the problems, we stumbled over one of those completely simple, Duh! kind of tips...we always leave our PCs up and running to take advantage of the updates we receive overnight. Turns out the continual updates done by many of the flash programs are not getting through until we turn the PC off (See, I told you it wasa Duh! kind of thing.) Once we reinstalled everything I began to turn my PC off and on again just before I used Articulate for anything. Haven't had any problems since, and managed to finish four new courses!! Thank you SO much.

Jane McGinnis
over 12 years ago09/26/11 at 12:11 pm (UTC)

Carolyn, there was more to it than that. First we uninstalled and reinstalled Ppt. Then reinstalled Articulate. Then we reinstalled Adobe flash and one other piece of software which dealt with flash programs that could have been affected by online updates recently. Once all that was done, it was fixed. Having said that, at the end of a very long narration session, it happened one more time, and created a "saved" file with all the narration -thank heavens. We learned it's also smart to shut down the PC just before we start work with Articulate, and after narrating 10-15 slides I back out and save. This seems to have done the trick.

Wayne Vermillion
12 years ago02/16/12 at 2:52 pm (UTC)

Regarding the "Annotations-Translucency" message, I'm encountering a similar but not identical problem. I'm suddenly encountering lock-ups when attempting to synch animations to audio. I do not see the typical ribbon message.

The preso simply locks, although other computer functions are still available, and I'm forced to Task Manager. There are two PPT-related tasks shown - one is a seemingly generic PPT instance, and the other is an instance of the PPT Show task. When I end the latter task, either before or after ending the generic PPT task, I then and only then see the the "Annotations-Translucency" task running. At that instant, I encounter a Windows "cannot shut down - dialog box open" message. I can finally shut down PPT completely, but even after re-booting, I encounter the same situation consistently.

Other: I've rebuilt two slides so far, but it's only the second rebuild that continues to present this problem. We recently upgraded to Windows 7 and Office 2010. I've been using the same computer on the same library of files for a couple of years now, without ever seeing this particular problem. I'm not keen on re-installing, which I've done before, but will reluctantly do so if recommended.

Peter Anderson
12 years ago02/17/12 at 7:35 am (UTC)

Hi Wayne,

When you installed the new version of Office, did you install the 32- or 64-bit version? Microsoft released a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Office 2010. Microsoft recommends installing the 32-bit version, and Articulate Presenter '09 will only work with the 32-bit version. Presenter '09 also will not work with the Click To Run version of PowerPoint 2010. For more information, check out this article.

If you don't feel that is the issue, I'd recommend submitting a case to our awesome support staff. They'll be happy to help you find you a solution. You can do that here. Thanks!

Wayne Vermillion
12 years ago02/17/12 at 8:35 am (UTC)

Thanks, Peter. After rebuilding two slides, this particular lesson sailed satisfactorily. If the problem blooms again, I'll submit a case.

(rant)People who install the wrong version of software, despite clear instructions, are the people who keep driving in the same lane despite multiple warnings that "this lane ends - merge over."(/rant)

Andi Thauerer
12 years ago04/02/12 at 4:08 am (UTC)

I'm experiencing the same problem as Wayne. PPT freeses as soon as I click on the start- sync button and I'm only able to return to normal via task manager and killing the apps. I'm running AP on win7 with ppt 2007. I tried several things like re-installation, but no success.

I found this problem also discussed in the old forum (http://www.articulate.com/forums/articulate-presenter/17563-adding-annotations-syncing-animations-freezes.html) but unfortunately no solution for my problem. Any idea what to do?

Andi Thauerer
12 years ago04/04/12 at 11:18 pm (UTC)

Hi Justin,

I just sent my case in... hope that you can find a solution. I do have a second installation (put there with ppt2010 on win7) and everything works fine on this computer.

Are there known conflicts with other programs/software installed? Because Articulate used to run without problems until it occured all of a sudden... 

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