Displaying variable string breaks slides

What does this mean - the user doesn't see it, or can't continue the course, or gets an error message? Which browser are you using?

Hello Wendy.

The browsers we have access to in our organisation are Internet Explorer 11, and FrontMotion (not Mozilla) Firefox (Nightly version 14.0.1).

I've added some screenshots.

When a page is displaying a variable in a newly published Storyline course, if the page loads at ALL then it loads as seen in the first screenshot - with a little spinning icon instead of your cursor, unable to click anything, and nothing at all displaying in the white box at the top next to "Morning". So this is the view in Firefox for us. Note: ONLY in courses we have recently published. All existing courses display variables just fine even in our Firefox.

The second screenshot shows what it SHOULD look like (taken in IE 11), with "Current score: 0/16" in the white box.

The third screenshot is my current work-around, replacing the variable string with a bunch of small rectangles in grey, and they turn green as the score goes up.

Hi Miriam

are you using quiz slides that calculate the score as they are answered or just content slides with triggers? Just seeing if I can recreate the issue - I have IE but not FrontMotion.

And so people don't think it's just something gone wrong in the course that I'm working on (because that did cross my mind), here's an example of that issue happening in a completely empty course except for ONE graded interaction:

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/54a842ee-dea2-4c47-8175-c8c90fe8f7a7/review

I'm using quiz slides, and so calling that score directly from the quiz results as I go.

But this issue happens with ANY variable I try and call to a page. So let's say I have a text variable that I make called ParticipantName, and default it to "Insert name here"

If I write %ParticipantName% on the slide, when previewing it shows "Insert name here" when I preview in Storyline or in IE.

However, when I preview in Firefox... endless load.

Hi Miriam

I just created a simple 2 slide plus result slide project in latest version of 360.  Name variable on first slide, then result variables.  Published to LMS and uploaded to Scormcloud and viewed in IE 11.  I had no issues with the content displaying and registering.

Here is a Peek video of me running the course through scormcloud 

Are the courses you are publishing new to 360 or have they been upgraded from SL2?

Hello Wendy, thanks for your help in trying to look at this, but you won't be able to recreate the issue in IE.

I should point out that it only breaks in ONE of our browsers (FrontMotion Firefox). It works in IE.

My issue was:

- Courses published BEFORE a recent update to Storyline 360 that display variables work just fine even in our Firefox.

- Courses we've published SINCE a recent Storyline 360 update suddenly break in Firefox if we display variables.

This only happens in Firefox, but it IS linked to a recent Storyline 360 update. Yet we're told "Oh well, your browser is incompatible with our software", and that sort of response bugs me when what we've previously published actually still works perfectly well in that browser. Just not new stuff.

I guess I just hope for an update to Storyline 360 where the issue gets fixed.

Attached is an screenshot from a different course. I'm viewing it in FrontMotion Firefox (the same one that my current module I'm trying to publish is being viewed in).

This also uses the same variable function to display points on the page. It was published one month ago and works fine in our FrontMotion Firefox.

If I republish the same thing again today, making absolutely no changes to the course, then I can no longer view it on Firefox because any page displaying the score (which is every page after the intro) won't load.

Sorry misunderstood - thought IE was acting up as well.  Gosh stuff like this drives me crazy as well. Just throwing things out there - has there been an update to FrontMotion recently that may been contributing. 

Not sure, but I'm about to put a fire up our IT department to see if we can update to a newer version of FrontMotion (with me luck, it's like shouting at a wall) since the version we're running was released in 2012.

So it's a combination of Articulate making some sort of change to the software that they tested in supported browsers and it worked just fine, which then happened to BREAK in our browser (yeah, I get it, it's not supported, but it's all we got haha!), AND our browser belonging on the scrap heap.

Hi Miriam,

I'm sorry you've run into this issue, and that it's something our team hasn't been helpful on. When it's in a browser that's outside our supported environments, and it's an environment that we can't recreate the issue in it's all but impossible to figure out the issue and next steps for a fix. 

I saw you were also working with Jonathan on this issue, and that he ran into the same roadblocks I mentioned. If you need anything else, feel free to let me or Jonathan know!