Audio cutting off

Oct 03, 2013

This is strange, I am wondering if anyone has had this same problem or if you have a resolution for me. At the end of my slide the audio cuts off and advances to the next slide. I go back to view the slide again and it plays the entire audio.  It does this on more than one slide. 

Frustrating! I certainly cannot inform the learner to view the slide twice cause the audio might cut off!

Suggestions? Please!

15 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Thanks Kathy. I tested this in preview and the published version I uploaded to Tempshare here. I've listened to the first few slides in preview and publish a bunch of times now, and they sound the same with the audio stopping at the same point and then the slide advancing. Can you listen to that version and let me know if you're hearing something different? When you're testing your published version, you'll want to test within the intended environment instead of testing locally as that may cause issues with the course not working as expected. 

Michael Gallagher

Try dragging the timeline of the slide so that there is about a second of time after the audio file ends. I have had to do this with audio clips and some video clips. I have gotten into the habit of starting my audio clip about a quarter second into the slide and adding a second of blank at the end of the timeline after audio ends. Hope this helps.

Chris Shallenberg

I'm running into this exact issue presented by the original post.  The most frustrating part is the inconsistency and unpredictability of when the issue occurs.  The 'Save and Close' method works, but then each republish has a chance of producing the issue on a different slide.

I suffered through this on two courses over the last month and continued with publishing versions until no audio bugs were present. I hoped the bug was isolated to the particular story file template used to create the two courses.

I've now revisited a story file that is over a year old to make a correction to one slide.  Upon making my correction to a piece of text and previewing the slide, I am having the audio bug occur.  Keep in mind this bug never occurred on this year old course when it was originally created and published.  This tells me that it is unrelated to the audio clip itself, and the particular story file, but is instead caused by the manner in which my latest Storyline version is now previewing/publishing my audio clips...

I would love some assistance in determining how this issue can be corrected.  I've already tried uninstalled and reinstalling Storyline 2.  The audio bug occurred in the exact same place on the story file after the reinstallation.

Alyssa Gomez

Hi Chris, so sorry to hear about the trouble your experiencing.

First, are you viewing the file locally? Working from a shared or network drive can cause odd behavior in Storyline.

If you're working locally and still experiencing issues with the audio files, I would recommend sharing your file with our support engineers here, so they can take a closer look at what could be causing this issue.

In the mean time, you may also want to try the workaround offered in this forum thread

Chris Shallenberg

Alyssa,

It occurs whether the file is on my local desktop or on our network. Here
is some additional info:

- The issue is now occuring sporadically on all story files that I open.
- May occur during preview mode and after publishing OR may only only
occur after publishing
- The issue does not occur when story files are viewed on other people's
machines. (So I suspect that you will not be able to replicate the issue)
- I'm using Storyline 2 Update 11: 1609.3020

I've read through that thread and I'm unsure what the workaround actually
is. Can you clarify for me?

Also, I'd be glad to submit one of the story files. How can I go about
doing this?

Thanks for the quick response.

Alyssa Gomez

Thanks for that information, Chris. The fact that you mentioned it does not occur when the files are viewed on other people's machines has me thinking you may need to repair your software. 

Here's a quick video tutorial of the workaround that I recorded in Peek - this will show you how to add a bit of time to the end of your audio files. Not sure if it will fix your issue with the audio cutting off, but it seemed to have worked for Matthew, so it's worth a try.

You can also reach out to our Support Engineers directly by way of this form. If you do go that route, feel free to share your case number here and I'll be sure to follow along with it. 

Noel Gorman

I am also running into this "cut off" problem with both audio and video in a Storyline 2 presentation.  As far as I can tell, the "cut off" problem happens when a slide's settings are set to automatically advance.  It never happens with "advance by user."

I may have found the source of this problem.  I've noticed that the seekbar seems to come "pre-loaded" a short distance into the slides - there appears to be a small but measurable length of seekbar at the immediate start of the slide's content (you really have to study the screen at the instant the slide starts, but it's there).  I've also noticed that for slides that are "advance by user," the audio runs a small fraction of a second beyond the seekbar hitting 100%.

If this "pre-loading" of the seekbar is somehow a true offset, it could explain why audio gets cut off: the seekbar essentially has a head start, and the slide advances when the seekbar is at 100%, disregarding the actual timeline of the objects in play.

I saw a technique recommended in another post on audio getting cut off: set the slide to "advance by user" but add a trigger to have the slide "jump to next slide" when "media completes," and specify the audio or video clip that runs right up to the end of the timeline.  I've tested out this method, and it works for both audio and video files in a slide.  This provides some corroborating evidence for the offset theory, as the automatic advance is based on an object, and not the seekbar directly.

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