Audio cut-off at the start of slides in Storyline 360

Nov 23, 2017

Hi everyone, 

The audio in my slides starts a couple of seconds after a slide has launched, so the first two or three words are cut off. The audio then abruptly cuts in.

Has anyone else experienced this issue and know why it's happening/how to fix it?

Thank you for any suggestions. Tom

38 Replies
Alyssa Gomez

Sorry to hear you're having audio trouble, Tom! Let's narrow down why this is happening--can you help me with a few details?

  • Are you using Storyline 360 Update 10? To check, click About Storyline on the Help tab.
  • Is your file saved to your local drive or a shared network drive?
  • Does this happen in any Storyline file, or just this one in particular?
Irene Boland

I just worked out the solution (for my case). It appears that even though the visual representation (in the timeline) of the audio has finished - the actual audio has not finished. My slide was ending at the same spot where the audio appeared to end. So, I adjusted the slide end to include what appears to be 1/4 sec of silence.  Now the audio finishes speaking. 

Vanda H.

Hi Harriet,

Do you use SL2 or SL3/360?

For Storyline 2 your audios can't start right at the beginning of the Timeline, you have to place them around (0.25 seconds or later).

For SL3/360:
Do you have more than 2 audios on your timeline?
We found and reported a bug long time ago, where the second (and later) audio(s)  won't play correctly if you jump to the same slide after finishing the timeline (=reload).
There are two possible workarounds:

1. You only use one (long) audio
2. You create an "intermediate page", that immediately leads back to the previous page. This works fine with audios on the base layer, but if you have more than one audio on layers, they remain broken :( 

I hope it  helps! 

Harriet Logan

Hi Vanda! 

Thanks for the info!

We use SL360.

We have already merged all our audios in one long audio, as we previously had this reload problem.

Our problem is that once you have viewed a slide in which the audio has played in a normal way, when you click on the "Jump to This slide" button, in order to review the same slide,  the slide replays correctly but the first seconds of the said audio remain silent.

The intermediate page could work but I'm afraid it will be too fastidious to apply to all our slides, I'm afraid it will make navigation more difficult to maintain.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for the help,

Harriet

Leslie McKerchie

Hello Marcel,

I took a look at the case that Harriet filed and it looks like her issue is still open with our team as we investigate the issue.

It seems specific to the HTML5 output and having a trigger that plays the media when the timeline starts.

Does that sound like what you are experiencing as well? 

If you need our team to take a look, you could certainly work with our support team privately here.

Marcel van Lierop

Hello Leslie and thanks for replying at such short notice.

 

The slides/pages were I encounter my problem have the following characteristics:

 

 

- They have one or more layers with (just) one audio fragment on them

 

 

- The base layer has one audio fragment as well with several buttons which will make the chosen layer visible (but hide the base layer's content)

 

 

FYI: the base layer has a line motion path as well. There are no triggers visible.

 

 

When you select one of the buttons on the base layer (and the timeline on the chosen layer has started), everything is fine and dandy when you play it the first time.

 

 

However, when you re-start the timeline once more (by for example selecting the replay button), the first second or so of the audio fragment is missing.

 

 

It's not that you do not hear something for one second and a half, because it starts playing right away. The first second or so is just skipped instantaneously, which does not match the accompanying text that shows up at the same time.

 

 

Unfortunately, I can't send you the file because of the nature of the content.

 

 

Hope this provides you with sufficient information.

 

Regards,

 

Marcel

Leslie McKerchie

Yes, that sounds like it's the same issue Marcel. Thanks for sharing as much detail as you could.

I'll attach this thread to the report as well so that we can update you here when we can.

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Claire Dervout

Hi all,

I had the same issue with audio files. What I have done is that  I have used, as said before, one audio file only. I have also noticed that the audio has to start at the very beginning of the timeline otherwise it will skip a part of the audio if you want to replay it. So I had to include a silence at the beginning of the audio to make it play at the start of the timeline. 

Claire

Claire Dervout

Hi Alyssa, Ashley and Kinga, 

That's exactly what I was trying to say and I have noticed that the issue only happens when the audio file does not start at 0 on the timeline. That is why adding a silence makes it work. 

Here is my previous comment added a few months ago: 

I had the same issue with audio files. What I have done is that I have used, as said before, one audio file only. I have also noticed that the audio has to start at the very beginning of the timeline otherwise it will skip a part of the audio if you want to replay it. So I had to include a silence at the beginning of the audio to make it play at the start of the timeline.

Leslie McKerchie

Hello John and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

Are you running into the same issue shared here with the audio cutting off? 

I'm glad that converting to mp4 was able to help you, but we'd be happy to take a look at the .story project with the .mp3 that was not working as you intended.

With your permission, I'd like you to share your project file with our support engineers to investigate what's happening. You can share it privately by uploading it here. It will be deleted when troubleshooting is complete.

L P

Is there a reliable fix for this issue?  My audio is cutting out at the beginning of some of my slides when they are published on the LMS (HTML5). 

As it sits right now, I believe all of my slides have a 0.5 second pause before the audio file starts.  I know it was mentioned to add silence at the beginning and have the file start right at the beginning of the timeline, but then someone else mentioned that didn't work for them.

It's not consistently happening on certain slides, but it's happening randomly when I test the course.  If I'm going to spend a bunch of time putting a workaround in, I need to be pretty sure that it's going to actually work!

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