Audio Files Crashing Storyline

Hi Kim and welcome to Heroes!

I'm sorry to hear about the behavior you've had with your audio files, and thanks for detailing the troubleshooting steps you've already gone through. Just to confirm, you conducted the repair steps detailed here? That one is a bit more involved than the standard repair, and you would need to follow all the steps outlined there. Also, what update of Storyline are you using? We're currently on update 5.  

Are you able to determine if it's a particular audio file or a particular audio file type that causes the crash to occur? Does it only crash in these courses you've already built, what about if you try to add the same audio file to a new Storyline course? That'll help us narrow down if it's the Storyline file or the audio causing the issue. 

If you're able to determine if it's one or the other, can you share the affected file with us here so that we can try as well? If it's too large to share in the forums, you're always welcome to connect with our Support engineers or I can send you directions on how to share it with me privately. 

Our developed is connecting a support engineer now. I will post whatever they decide was this issue so that others can learn from it.

Thanks Kim, I see that you're colleague is working with Adrian, one of our Senior Support Engineers and they'll be going over some things later today for the case (# 00363321 for my reference) so I'll follow along as well so that I can update the thread. 

I am having this issue. Was there something that fixed it? I have already tried uninstalling and reinstalling Storyline. In addition, sometime when I add audio a new line appears in the timeline but there is no file associated with it. I am trying to complete a course and this is keeping me from doing so. Any help is very welcomed!

Hello Dawn!

Sorry, you're running into an issue with audio in your course! I see that you've reached out to our Support Engineers and are working with my teammate, Gerald, in a support case. You're in great hands. We'll continue working in your support case so that we have all the information in one spot.

I am experiencing the same issue as Dawn and Kim here in 2022.  Here's what I've tried:

1. I just installed the update of 5/24/22
2. I clear the %temp% app cache after each crash
3. I created a new, 'virgin' test.story file with no triggers, images, etc whatsoever, just 2 pages - one with placed audio and a seekbar
4. I add the highly compressed .mp3 (it's a 43 min podcast)
5. link the .srt file - needs to be 508 compliant

I can publish about once to Review 360, but trying again for 'Web' and the publish process crashes. What did your Support Engineers tell Dawn (and Kim 8 years ago) was the issue?
I can replace the .mp3 with a much shorter duration source of larger file size and it seems to publish. Does SL have a timeline limit or something?

Hi, Craig.

Thank you for reaching out!

When you add the audio to the project, which compression option do you choose?

It was initially set to automatic in my project, but the audio sounded "doubled" on my end. Once I changed it to "none", it worked fine. I'm wondering if this can also be the issue when publishing.

I successfully published to Review 360 and web from the attached .story file.

Let me know if that works for you!

Yes, I forgot to mention that I too used the None for the compression, given that it was already highly down-sampled. I will give your file a try and report back. Unfortunately that one page of media has to be 'wrapped' by a few pages of text, a page of freeform input fields, all while a couple 'verified page viewed' variables are put to use.

Maria, Can you post that audio_test.story file by some other means? Clicking on it produces some xml ExpiredToken error. Thank you.

Hi, Craig.

I created a support case and e-mailed you another link to the sample file I created. 

I'm happy to continue this conversation through the case!