Element did not appear in published file

Hi there, Nicole.  Thanks for those details.  It's always those outlier obstacles that are the hardest to pin down.  So let's do some detective work:  🔎

• Can you grab some details about what browser this learner is using?  I love using http://supportally.com/ to get browser details, like version number and whether Flash Player is enabled.
• Does the learner have the browser zoomed in (or out) at all?
• If you have access to this same browser, are you able to reproduce the issue on your end?
• If the course is hosted in the LMS, can you manually reset the learner so they can attempt the course again in a different browser?

We'll see if we can get a lead from these clues!

Hi Crystal,

• The learner used both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer and Flash Player was enabled but we did publish this for LMS on Articulate Storyline 360 so I think HTML5 was already being used.
• The learner did not have the browser zoomed in, it was in its normal view.
• I do have the same browsers on my machine but I was not able to replicate the issue. We also assigned the same course to a very big number of learners but have only seen once instance of this issue so far.
• The course is hosted on an LMS and can be reset manually but we are trying to find a solution other than that at the moment as the slide is somewhat in the middle of the course already and it seems unfair for the learner to have to do it all over again but this will be our last resort.
• We've also asked the learner to clear the browser's cache and relaunch the course but that didn't work. We just had a call with her and shared screens, the buttons still remain at only 3 instead of 4 and the next button still isn't working.

Hopefully we can figure out why this might be occurring and find a solution for future courses.

 Hi Nicole,

Were you able to determine any differences in your and the learner's browser version? That could be contributing to the issue if they're using an unsupported browser. 

It does sound like the course is stuck within the LMS if it's only that user and it's not allowing them to access it in another browser or with the browser cache cleared. Have other learners reached this point in the course and passed through it successfully? If so, it sounds like resetting the learner within the LMS will be the next step. 

If you can determine anything else specific about this user's set up - please let us know! 

Hi Ashley,

The learner's browser and mine are the same version. Yes, other learners have reached that slide and passed through it without trouble, this is the first occurrence of the issue.

We did resort to having the user restart the course. When she relaunched it, she chose 'Restart' instead of 'Resume' and went through the initial slides again. When she got to the slide with the issue, it worked correctly so restarting the course (via the bookmarking function) did the trick.

We are just wondering why this might have occurred? Is it normal behavior for courses to sometimes get stuck within the LMS? Hope you can explain this further.

Thank you for your insights! :)

Hi there, Nicole!  Thanks for continuing to provide these details.  I'm glad that you were able to reset your learner, though I know it was inconvenient for her to restart the course from scratch.

It's hard to say how her session got into this state.  We typically don't see a course getting stuck for one learner without her using an unsupported browser or experiencing a drop in internet connection.  Whatever did happen, it likely corrupted the suspend data so that the course couldn't resume, even in another browser.

Thanks for working through it with us, and let us know if you see another case like this, or if you discover any reproducible steps to get the course stuck.

Thanks, Crystal. Your insight on the suspend data likely being corrupted is something to think about.

Unfortunately, we received another report today - same issue but it occurred on a different slide this time.

Some things that those two slides have in common:

• Multiple objects which they have to click in order to progress / activate the Next button
• The objects are animated to enter individually (in succession) - could this possibly cause any issues? We're thinking of removing the animation to make sure that when a slide starts, all the objects are already there to begin with, eliminating the possibility that one of them won't appear.
• The objects that did not appear were both in the middle of their sequence, i.e. not the first or last objects in the set (2nd and 6th)
• Objects are in groups

Out of ideas so we're just going to ask this user to restart the course as well and are hoping that we don't run into any more issues such as this.

Hi Nicole,

Now that you're starting to see some reproducible pieces, I'd like to have our Support Team take a look at the file with your permission. 

I started a case for you, so you'll see an email confirmation shortly with a link to upload your .story file, can you also indicate what two slide numbers were problematic? If you can also share a link to the course in the LMS that will help us do additional testing. 

Someone from the team will be in touch via email once they've taken a look, and once we're all done the files will be deleted too.