When publishing for LMS, no zip file is produced, just a zia?

See Brian's reply here in the old forums.  Help?

Thanks Brian. I appreciate your link to the old posts. Very strange, I made no changes and today it works. Next time I will start by rebooting and see what happens.

If you have a large hard drive, just create an project folder on the root of c:\ and then inside of there publish your project. That way the path and file name will be nice and short. An option not mentioned was to simply build the project and compress afterward using windows compression.

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, I would just make the project and then right click on the file folder and send it to a compressed zip folder. Anyway just a thought.

Thanks Gerry and James for your replies. This time, my issue went away by doing nothing except rebooting. I did not change anything in the file/folder locations or renaming files. But your advice is much appreciated and if this ever happens to me again, I will certainly take a closer look your suggestions.

~Barb

Sometimes a reboot is all it takes.

FYI I am having the same problem, and using the Windows zip compression makes a zip folder just fine, but that folder than doesn't work when loaded to my LMS.

Have tried rebooting in various combinations. 4 times it doesn't work, then the 5th time it does.

Has anyone figured out anything new since February?

Thanks very much for any help you can offer.

Hi Michael,

Are you zipping the folder that contains the published output?  If so, then that will not work in your LMS.  Rather, you need to go into the folder, select all of the files, and then create the ZIP file from there.

Hi, I am having the same problem as the original post.

A zia file is created instead of a zip. From today this applies to pretty much everything I try to zip.

I have rebooted several times but nothing makes any difference. I have the folder (2 digits) saved to my C drive and really short file names and still won't zip.

If I zip using Windows, the LMS doesn't like it.

Anything else I can try?

Hi Andrea.

I am guessing this is related to the location of your project files or the publish location. I would try the following:

1. Quit PowerPoint.
2. Create two folders here C:\Articulate and C:\Articulate Publish
3. Copy the PowerPoint file and its corresponding PPTA file to the C:\Articulate folder.
4. Open the presentation.
5. Follow the steps here to publish to C:\Articulate Publish: http://community.articulate.com/tutorials/products/publishing-a-presentation-for-lms.aspx

This is pretty much how I had it but I have created the folders with the names exactly as you say above. I also copied the quiz and the attachment then re-added both from the new location.

Hello zia file. Grrrrr

I've removed both the quiz and the attachment and...... another zia.

It's a small presentation so can't be size and it pretty much happens with anything I try to zip - even those that zipped fine last week.

Can you follow the steps below to get me a trace log of what's happening?

Also, if you create a test presentation, do you have the same issue?

I had a problem with my Quizmaker thinking it was unregistered. I have registered it and have successfully zipped about 10 presentations over the last couple of days.

My first zia has appeared today so I will try the trace with this one.

Attached log file for a real project which now creates a zia file instead of a zip.

I will go and do a test to my test locations etc and upload that.

Testat root of C zips. SUCCESS

Testin same folder as failure above zips. SUCCESS

Testwith Quiz zips. SUCCESS

Testwith Attachment zips. SUCCESS

Test with quiz and attachment failed to zip. FAIL

I attach the trace of the failure.

Then I tried to rezip the Test with Quiz which hadoriginally zipped and this one failed.

It is not dependent on location or the file but appears tohappen at random and then once it happens I won’t be able to zip for a while.

Then once I can zip again, the things I was unable to zipwill zip!

Hi Andrea.

Can you please submit a case here with your log files:

http://upload.articulate.com

Please also include the forum URL when entering your details about the file upload. Once the file is uploaded you will receive a confirmation email with a case number. Please let me know that case number and I'll be happy to escalate your case to my senior level support team.

Hi Justin,

I have uploaded the log file (the test one that failed along with the URL to this post).

I am on holiday for the next two weeks though so I will be unable to do much testing until 28th November.

Thanks

Was there any update here?  Success or not?  Problem solved?  I have a client who is having a similar problem, and would like to know if the issue was resolved.  Thanks.

Hi David,

For zip creation to work properly, the full directory path of the publish location needs to be less than 256 characters in length, including the name of the zip file itself. 

Also, please be aware that working on a network drive or publishing to a network drive can cause erratic behavior. You should edit and publish your content on your local hard drive (typically, your C: drive). 

If you continue to experience the same issue, please follow the troubleshooting instructions below. 

1) Try to download and install Winzip utility from this link below. 

http://www.winzip.com 

2) Uninstall Articulate Studio '09 from the Add/Remove Programs. 
3) Download the installer from the link below. 

http://www.articulate.com/downloads/2011/03/Studio-09-Update-8.zip 

4) Extract the installer to your desktop. 
5) Right-click on the Studio-09-Update-8.exe file and select "Run as Administrator". 
6) Install and follow the instructions to activate. 
7) Test your Articulate Studio '09 applications by creating a test file on your desktop and publishing on the same location. Create a zip and see if you still get the same issue. 

I have generated many zipped files in the last months and today I only get the zia0218. I only updated my antivirus program but I can't belive this caused the bug.  I have a deadline to meet and this happens now???

Question- when I Unistall Articulate studio will I loose all my player templates?
Thanks

My problem seemed to go away of it's own accord. Then it came back. The only thing that fixed it was a full reinstall. I've done that twice now.

The zia problem reappeared last month and I just don't have the time to start working through all the fixes again to end up going to a new machine or flattening my current one. I just zip it manually.

Before you reinstall, try this - works for me everytime. Publish your zip file to your desktop. You can always move the zip to your folder of choice later. I believe this zia error occurs for one of these two reasons: either the file structure is too deep, or the file name is too long. Oddly, if you come back to this course weeks from now, the error goes away completely!

The file name and location does not seem to matter in my case (though I can MAKE it create a zia by having these things too long so I believe that it may work for a lot of people).

Once mine turns to the dark side it doesn't matter where I publish. Tried desktop, root of C, single letter folders, single letter names etc. It stops working - then the same file, in the same folder, will work again at some point in the future.

For me, once it's happened there does not seem to be a recovery (I spent weeks working through anything I could find that might fix it). So a brand new file called "a" from the root of C will still create a zia.

I work for a large organisation running group policies, desktop authority and preconfig'ed virus protection. I'm starting to think it's something that they (or Microsoft as we get every update forced upon us) switch off an on that causes this problem in Articulate. This ties in with Camilo's post on updating his virus protection.

Hi All.  Thank goodness for this community!

I had the same problems/deadlines/failed fix attempts discussed above.

Although I work for myself (as opposed to a large corporation) I noticed that there had been an update to my Norton antivirus today which is also when I started having "zia" nightmares...

Switched off the antivirus and restarted the articulate presentation I wanted to package, and voila - a zip file appeared, so I think Andrea and Camilo may be onto something.

Thanks again to everyone

Re-started my PC next day, switched off antivirus and ZIP appeared. Right there Ingrid.