File is too big in Storyline

Hi  Ira and welcome to Heroes!

As you'll see in this similar thread, the file size is sometimes not the issue but the amount of RAM on your computer which sounds like what you may be running into. The minimum system requirements for Storyline are listed here.

Hi Ashley, thank you for your reply! I did see the previous thread which made me get more RAM (now I have 8gb) but the file is still flashing and is not responding. My PC runs 64bit Windows so that might slow things down... I'm thinking of getting SSD hard disc, should that help?

Thanks!

Hi guys.

I had the same problem with a large file before. When I get similar messages I do the run>temp>select all>delete command and it  works. I find performing this task a minimum once a week avoids a lot of issues. Don't forget to empty recycle bin afterward.

I also try to break large files into a course made up  of lessons of a more managable size. So even if the course file size is big the software is only seeing small pieces at a time.

Best

Dave

Hi Ira, 

Thanks for the update. I have seen other threads where the 64bit Windows was mentioned as a reason it may be slow. I haven't used a SSD hard disc, nor have I seen a lot mentioned in the forums so I can't offer a recommendation on that, but hopefully someone in the community can weigh in. 

Hi Dave, 

Thanks for sharing your idea here on how to work with large file sizes. 

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your suggestions, I tried them on but unfortunately still doesn't work for the specific project.

However I will implement them on my other projects, it does speed up things.

Ashley, thanks for trying to help me out. I submitted a case with the file to the support team, hopefully they can help.

I will update the thread after they get back to me, hopefully with a solution.

Thanks Ira and I see your case (#00363743 for my reference) has been assigned to Regil. I'll follow along as well. 

I see that Regil has been assigned to your case and is doing some additional testing, so I'll continue to follow along. 

I'm beginning to believe the problem is somewhere in the storyline player.  I've had increasing difficulties with out of memory errors and storyline not completing the publishing process. A lot of the time if I go into the player settings and reset it, I can then save the file. But I also lose any resources or custom setting I've added.  When I watch the resource monitor I can see more and more memory being allocated to storyline even though nothings being done, just trying to save makes it go up.  The largest storyline file I have is 770mb, which I've just edited and republished, but I've had 200mb files fail.

Hi David, thank you for your suggestion, however in my case I didn't even got to saving or publishing.

My file was checked by Regil from the support team and his conclusion was that the file was corrupted.

BUT, meanwhile I think I have an idea what could have happen.

Originally I was working with several SL files and copied pasted scenes to a main file. It worked fine for several scenes but at some point the file started act weird.

Eventually, I  imported the same scenes via "file>import" , and  the problem was solved! It is still a fairly large file (330mb) but is working. That makes me to believe that the "copy-paste" was what caused all the mess.

Hope my frustrating experience will help someone else  

Thanks!

Thanks Ira for sharing that here - and if you need to use particular slides in a new project, we'd recommend following the procedures here to import it into a new Storyline project. 

David, if you'd like us to test one of your files as well, we're happy to check it if you'll send the .story file here.  Additionally David, since you mentioned this happened on a number of files, you may want to begin by conducting a repair of Storyline. 

O.K. I see replies like this all over the community. Customer asks you how to fix a watch. You tell them it's not the watch; it's their eyes. Please stop it. 

I need the original question answered, which is basically: When I'm ready to publish, how do I reduce the file size without losing/degrading content?

Please answer this specific question! Don't tell me, "it's the RAM." That is irrelevant. I need it as small as it can be for my client without degrading quality.

Captivate can do this. Even Camtasia. How do you do it in StoryLine? 

Hi Touvio!

You can check your additional publishing options found in this tutorial if you would like to manually adjust the settings.