Audio not playing with screencast layer on certain browsers

Jan 24, 2017

Hopefully someone else has experienced this. We've got multiple courses where we'll have a slide that has a screencast layer and an audio layer. Most of the time theses slides play find. The user can seen the screencast and hear the audio. However we've been receiving reports where the audio doesn't play. I was finally able to replicate the issue when I ran one of the courses using Firefox. I was using Firefox version 39.0 for the test. After trying many things, I discovered that if the audio layer starts at timeline 0.0 secs and the video starts at timeline 0.0 secs, then the video will play but the audio will not when running on certain browsers. Customers were reporting the issue when running Win 10 and the Edge browser. 

However, if I move the audio to start at around 0.5 secs and leave the video starting at 0.0, then everything works fine. I'm assuming that this is because it takes a moment for the video layer to load. And since the timeline has already started during the video load, it's already past the 0.0 secs and never sees the beginning of the audio file. Would that be a correct assumption? I'm hoping that some of the Articulate tech folks will see this and be able to confirm this. If this is the case, does anyone know of any other way to resolve this issue? We have a ton of courses built this way and I hate the thought of having to go back and adjust all of the start times for the audio layers. Thanks for any help you can give!

 

5 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hey Mark,

Thanks for sharing here the behavior you're seeing. What version of Storyline are you working with? Also do you know if you were viewing the Flash output or HTML5 output? First I'd look to confirming you're on the latest updates of Storyline (update 11) and using a later update of Firefox - I'm currently on version 50.  Also Storyline 2 offered HTML5 support for browsers such as Chrome and Safari, so if you were seeing the HTML5 content in Firefox or Edge that could also explain some of the inconsistencies.

We’d be happy to take a look at your file. You’ll want to upload the .story file here (which is the file prior to publishing) using the “ADD ATTACHMENT” button at the bottom of the forums reply window. If you’d prefer to not share in the public you’re always welcome to share with our Support Engineers here. They’re available 24/7 to assist! 

My Linh Nguyen

Hi Mark, 

Thank you so much for posting about this. We started encountering this issue a month ago when we started building courses with separate screencasts and audio files. We discovered that if the user pauses and then restarts the slide, the audio will play along with the screencast. But that puts the onus on the user. I tried your solution to delay the audio by 0.5 seconds in the timeline and now it works! Unfortunately like you said, this means we will have to go back into every single course and every single slide that has screencast and audio. But at least it's a solution. Thank you for sharing!

Alyssa Gomez

Hi My Linh, I'm glad you stumbled on this thread! Although, going back into every course and adjusting every slide sounds like a lot of work, so I'd like to take a closer look at your file to see if there's a better solution. Would you mind attaching a sample of it here and helping me with a few more details, like...

  • What version of Storyline are you using? 
  • Are you seeing this in Storyline preview, or after publishing?
  • What browsers did you use for testing?
My Linh Nguyen

Thanks Alyssa. Unfortunately to protect our intellectual property, I am not at liberty to share any of our files. I can tell you that we use Storyline 2. The problem is sporadic and occurs after we have published it and posted it to our custom LMS. We use Chrome mostly to test. But have heard from a number of clients who we presume are using other browsers. We use Snagit to get the screencasts, and record our audio separately. We do not have this problem in slides that start with audio and images, and a screencast later in the same slide. It occurs only on slides where the audio and screencast are at the start of the timeline.

Leslie McKerchie

Hello My Linh!

Since you cannot share the content, my advice would be to test via SCORM Cloud to see if you can replicate the issue.

This will help identify if the issue lies within the project file or the LMS. If you are able to replicate, we may need to take a look, but you can work directly with our support team privately here.

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