Audio Files not loading on slide layers

Aug 05, 2015

Mark Van Hare
By Mark Van Hare

I have a program that has Audio files (recorded in Storyline 2) in a slide layer.  I had previously previewed the scenes and they all worked, I published it to Web and was able to hear all of the content.  I just published it to Articulate Online and when I reviewed the program the audio did not play.  I opened the .story file went to the slide and opened up the layer and the Audio line on the time line is not showing the wave form it usually does.  The file is represented by the blue box and is the same length as the recording.  when I click the box it says "Loading Audio..." but it looks like it has hung-up.  When I double click the blue box the Audio Editor window comes up and it is blank.  if I try to close the Audio Editor window it will not close and the whole Storyline 2 has frozen.  The strange thing is that this has happened on only two slides that are in different scenes.  in total I have lost 14 audio files the rest of the program is intact and working.  I would appreciate any help figuring out how to fix this.

     

7 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
over 8 years ago08/06/15 at 3:58 pm (UTC)

Hi Mark,

I'm very sorry to hear about the behavior you encountered and it's particularly unusual that the web publish worked fine and then the file only was impacted after publishing to Articulate online. I'd want to first confirm that you're working on project files as described here and were initially publishing locally as well. 

You mentioned it says "loading audio" but I did also want to offer a reminder that if you're triggering audio, the waveform will not appear as described here. 

I haven't seen the audio disappear entirely, so I'd also look at importing it into a new file as described here and if it persists we'll want to take a look at the .story file. 

Joe P
over 8 years ago01/05/16 at 12:12 am (UTC)

During the current project I am working on, I've experienced the same situation as Mark. Certain slides, the audio file still had a layer in the timeline and an icon on the stage, but the waveform is gone, and no audio plays during preview or publication. When attempting to edit the audio, SL freezes. This is using SL2 and .wav files.

I've attached a screengrab showing the missing wave, the icon on screen and the layer still existing.

Any idea of what is causing this? Out of 120~ slide course, 15 files were corrupted, so roughly 1/10.

Thanks!

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
over 8 years ago01/05/16 at 3:18 pm (UTC)

Hi Joe, 

I didn't hear back from Mark in this thread, and I'm not certain if he reached out to our team. Did you review the other troubleshooting steps I shared with him? I'd also be curious to know if you're only seeing this in one file, as then the file may be corrupted as a whole. File corruption is unpredictable, and there's no straightforward way to determine what causes it. Common causes are environmental (disk errors, power outages, improper shutdowns), viruses, failed Windows updates, and even file size (i.e., very large files have a higher risk of corrupting).

Consider these preventative measures to protect your project files:
 
1) Save and publish projects on your local hard drive. Working on a network drive or external USB drive can cause erratic behavior due to latency.
 
2) Save incrementally. If your app has an AutoRecovery feature, take advantage of it. If not, save a new version of your project every hour or so with a new file name each time. If a file becomes corrupt, you'll still have a working version available.
 
3) Install Dropbox. Snapshots of changes in your local Dropbox folder are kept for 30 days. If a file is damaged or deleted, you can restore a previous snapshot: https://www.dropbox.com/help/11/en.
 
4) Don't leave the app open and unattended for long periods of time. Some users have reported file corruption after leaving their apps open overnight. It's possible that a malware scan or disk backup could run because the machine is idle, making your app vulnerable to crashing.
 
Additionally if you're having issues across multiple files, you could also look at conducting a repair of Storyline to resolve odd general behavior. 
Joe P
over 8 years ago01/05/16 at 3:29 pm (UTC)

Thanks for responding Ashley, I did explore the troubleshooting options.

Because there didn't seem to be any logic to the slides that the audio did their disappearing trick on, I'll chalk it up to bad luck corruption. We use SVN as our directory, so we have backups, but the AutoRecovery on SL2 has saved me a couple of times!

Thanks again.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
over 8 years ago01/05/16 at 3:42 pm (UTC)

Hi Joe,

Is your SVN directory not a local install? That could be a part of the corruption issues if they're being saved to a network or shared drive, as it causes issues with latency. I assume you mean auto recovery from your own directory, as the Storyline version is designed for when Storyline crashes and the file can be recovered. 

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