My first slide will no longer advance to the second via my trigger nor via the next button. If I replace the slide the same thing happens. This was never a problem previously. The only thing I did was to install the latest update.
OK just downloaded the latest update - and the above problem was fixed but NOW the pick one quiz questions on slide 3 is not showing any of the answers.
Thanks for sharing the file. I saw the same thing in your file that all the Pick one options on your slides in the question bank won't display while previewing or publishing. I tried importing those slides into a new file, and they actually don't come through at all.
Could you let me know if you're able to try importing those question slides into a new file?
Nope - they do not come through. I spent a LOT of time getting those questions exactly how I wanted them and tested the whole module just before updating. I am not like the majority of the people here - i am not a professional - it takes me a long time to do this. These questions worked before the update and now do not even import! Seriously - this makes me want to cry. I don't have time to do this - all on my own time and $ on a volunteer basis. How can I trust that the hard work I do will not be wiped out and will still be there in the future? What is going on that previously working things suddenly stop working?
I'm so sorry for the frustration this is causing you! This is an error on our end, and our team is already working on a fix.
Here's an overview of the problem we're seeing: if your Pick One slide has a background rectangle, that rectangle will incorrectly cover the Pick One answer choices.
I see you also opened a case about this, and we let you know you can get around this issue by setting the Shuffle Feature to None.
I realize you may not want to change that setting because it's a crucial part of this activity, so I wanted to offer another workaround for you. Instead of using a blue rectangle as the slide background, change the background color of the slide to blue. Here's a screen recording that demonstrates how to do that in your file.
Again, I apologize for all the headaches this is causing. We'll let you know as soon as it's fixed!
Alyssa - thanks once again for your help. I did make a support case as I thought perhaps that might be more appropriate after all as it appeared there was a big bug in the software to me. I also thought of your solution but it still has bugs in it. Here is what I heard from the support team and my response.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for your patience while I was reviewing your file and for letting us know about this issue.
The issue with your slide 1.3 is that the Freeform answer choices are being covered by the background object 'Rectangle 12' when the answers are set to shuffle. It occurs when previewing and when viewing the HTML5 output in Chrome. I’ve logged it as a possible software bug.
As a workaround, you can remove the shuffle in your freeform slides. Here's a Peek that demonstrates this workaround:
I've edited your project file and removed the shuffle in your Free-from slides from 'Can you hear me' & 'Hear Bank 2' Question banks. You may download it here:
From here, I’ll meet with my team to take a closer look so we can determine the next steps. Sometimes my team catches errors in my logic, and we don’t have a bug after all. Of course, if that’s the case, I’ll let you know!
Depending on priority and risk, some bugs can be fixed quickly, while others take longer to resolve. Here's more information on how we identify and tackle bugs:
I’ll let you know as soon as we have an update on this issue. Thanks so much again for letting us know about this, and I’m sorry if it’s slowing you down.
This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Rectangle 12 covers the whole slide so why are only the buttons affected? These slides may not seem important to you but they are vital to me and the shuffle function is especially vital. [Without a sound check my students sometimes try to view them without sound - just clicking anywhere on the screen until they get the right place].
I WANT the buttons to shuffle just like I want other question slides to have shuffles in them. Shuffling is important for students who often look over at another students screen to see what they choose. Mostly they pick up the location of the click so shuffling is important. Shuffling is in a LOT of my work! If you offer a product - it ought to be able to work.
I removed rectangle 12 and made a background instead. However - now I am having trouble with a button disappearing after a time period - all are set to remain til the end so that makes no sense to me. Sometimes the disappearing button is the one needed to click on!!!! Also the buttons are not all working to take the user to the correct slide.
THIS is NOT appropriate. I spent hours getting these slides to work properly and what you are telling me through your bug policy is that:
1. At anytime Articulate can make an update that will render my hours of work useless. 2. Articulate can decide that whatever they did to affect my work is a bug or not. If not - no help. 3. Even if Articulate decides it is a bug, they decide whether to address it or not. If not - no help. You are telling me that I do not count - only if I am part of a large majority affected? 4. Even if they decide to address it, They can take their own sweet time about it - so likely this will not be done under MY DEADLINES - so no help. My problem must be prioritized? How do you prioritize the education of middle school students? EVEN THIS TWO DAYS LATER IS NOT GOING TO WORK - AND EVEN THEN THE SOLUTION IS NOT A GOOD ONE.
So you are saying that at any time Articulate can take their program, make a change that wipes out hours of work, makes my work unusable without notice to me, (I was lucky to catch this during summer) AND the most likely outcome is that I am out of luck to put it mildly. I work with MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS - THESE HAVE TO BE PERFECT EVERY TIME AND WORK WHEN NEEDED. It will completely mess up the course progress otherwise and their comprehesion. This is to help students who have difficulty learning - so the progression needs to be perfect. BTW - this work is ALL volunteer - I have paid for Articulate for years and years on my own dime (I started with the version before the 09 version although with a different email) and all the years of working on these modules and years of in the classroom time were completely uncompensated - other than knowing that the students REALLY learned and gained confidence in themselves - especially those who had little confidence before. Parents stop me and tell me their high school student aced their high school test because of what they learned in middle school. Former students send me facebook message from college saying what they learned in my class in 6th grade is still helping them. Some of them chose their careers right in my classroom. I have enjoyed and benefited from this community as well. I believed in Articulate and staked my money and my time in it - in a big way. Articulate, this community and I changed lives together but now this volunteer is losing heart. I have struggled through my steep learning curve, pushed myself to master techniques to benefit my students, watched tutorials and webinars utilizing the practice files, deconstructed freebie templates, added hours to my workload to make it just that much more engaging, to make learning based on doing not telling, to make this a learning tool like no other. I paid for new updates to make the learning better even when the price got steeper and steeper and while my own funds got smaller and smaller. I wanted my students to have the advantage each new update brought through the new possibilities it opened up. I worked on my own time - up late, back again up early, weekends - you name it. I pushed on for love of my students and teaching and seeing the affect it had on them. But this has threatened to topple my resolve when all else could not.
I am at a loss - how can I work hard on these for my students while not knowing if what I worked so hard to get working, will still work? Not knowing whether it will be detrimental by assigning something that doesn't work? I can't tell you how badly that would affect the students and their trust in me. Will new updates continue to detrimentally affect previous functions? How will I find the problems? Will I get them fixed in time? Will I EVER be able to count on Articulate? Is Articulate worthy of my trust?
I can't tell you how how saddened I am to hear that we've let you down. You've been a long-time and loyal Articulate user and a valued member of our community. What's more, I love that you're using our products to do some good in the world.
I myself was a middle school teacher. I know what it's like to go in early, stay late, and give up weekends to create learning experiences that students will remember long after they leave the classroom. You've sacrificed so much of yourself, your time, and your resources—it's inspiring. Those middle school years are crucial for kids, and your students are so lucky to have a teacher who is willing to go above and beyond to see them succeed.
I want to apologize for all the frustration and extra work this bug has caused you. We made a mistake, and correcting this issue is a major priority for us. We've got all eyes on it until we have a solution in place. Until then, we want to do all we can to make this right for you. Since the workarounds we offered aren't viable options, we'd love to help you install a previous update of Storyline 360, which will have your course working just the way it was before you updated your software. Please take a look at the rollback steps Renson recently shared with you via email, and let us know if you have any questions about that.
I want you to know we're working really hard to ensure that unexpected bugs don't sneak into new releases in the future. We're so sorry again that we've had this impact on you, Robin. I hope the insight I shared will help regain some of the love we lost from you.
Thank you for passing along my concerns. The support team contacted me with regard to instructions on how to return to a previous working version of Articulate.
My concern was not only with the update disrupting previously working functions but also with the statement referring this disruption to the usual bug identification and fixing Articulate policy as stated below:
First, our team will assess how the feature’s current behavior differs from the behavior we intended. Sometimes there’s an error with our product documentation or user behavior rather than a bug. We want to eliminate that possibility first. If we confirm that there's a software bug, we work as a team to prioritize the problem. We’ll look at how many customers the bug affects and how seriously those customers are impacted. We’ll also talk about how difficult the bug is to fix and if fixing it might cause other problems with the software. Once we’ve prioritized the bug, it goes into our development team’s work queue in order of priority. Of course, bugs that affect larger numbers of people or have a significant impact on users will always be tackled first.
I reacted as I did because of this alarming and rather cavalier attitude towards the length of time users put into meticulously crafting a tool to meet their goals and deadlines - whether it affects a lot or a few. Any disruption of previous function should be a high priority item. I love having new features in Articulate 360 (which is why I am paying for the annual subscription) but I would hope that the new features and their effects on previous features arrive properly tested. Please do not use us as your field testers. Another support team member assured me that the focus for the next updates will be on bug fixes.
We also need a better system to find out about known bugs and how-to issues. [Case in point - slides would not advance if there was an arrow on the following slide - the issue that unknowingly originated this thread. I spent a lot of time trying to resolve this problem before contacting you]. This is wasted time if there is already a known bug. Perhaps you could add additional identification lines to user posts that would be under Articulate control so that Articulate staff could add consistent search terms that more appropriately highlight the core issues so users could easily find pertinent information. This is sometimes very hard to do for many different areas in Articulate. For this problem, we did not know what was causing it so would never have gotten the correct search term. This is a great need and would be extremely useful to all your users. I would imagine it would also significantly decrease the number of posts Articulate would have to respond to since there would be less duplication if people are more easily finding answers to their queries.
Again, as always, thank you for your help and time spent trying to identify and fix the problem. It is very much appreciated. I look forward to a better system of updates with more extensive prior testing and a better system of communication with your users in the future.
FYI - Ashley, I crafted my latest reply before seeing your new post. I appreciate that the area of more prior testing for updates is being addressed but I also strongly recommend a better system for communication.
I saw Victor reached out and shared some more information with you, but I wanted to say on behalf of Alyssa, Victor, and the rest of the team here - thank you for all your time, insight, and honesty.
We've shared your comments here and in your case with our team and we're all working to prevent a similar situation in the future.
If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to reach out!
10 Replies
OK just downloaded the latest update - and the above problem was fixed but NOW the pick one quiz questions on slide 3 is not showing any of the answers.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for sharing the file. I saw the same thing in your file that all the Pick one options on your slides in the question bank won't display while previewing or publishing. I tried importing those slides into a new file, and they actually don't come through at all.
Could you let me know if you're able to try importing those question slides into a new file?
Nope - they do not come through. I spent a LOT of time getting those questions exactly how I wanted them and tested the whole module just before updating. I am not like the majority of the people here - i am not a professional - it takes me a long time to do this. These questions worked before the update and now do not even import! Seriously - this makes me want to cry. I don't have time to do this - all on my own time and $ on a volunteer basis. How can I trust that the hard work I do will not be wiped out and will still be there in the future? What is going on that previously working things suddenly stop working?
Hi there Robin!
I'm so sorry for the frustration this is causing you! This is an error on our end, and our team is already working on a fix.
Here's an overview of the problem we're seeing: if your Pick One slide has a background rectangle, that rectangle will incorrectly cover the Pick One answer choices.
I see you also opened a case about this, and we let you know you can get around this issue by setting the Shuffle Feature to None.
I realize you may not want to change that setting because it's a crucial part of this activity, so I wanted to offer another workaround for you. Instead of using a blue rectangle as the slide background, change the background color of the slide to blue. Here's a screen recording that demonstrates how to do that in your file.
Again, I apologize for all the headaches this is causing. We'll let you know as soon as it's fixed!
Alyssa - thanks once again for your help. I did make a support case as I thought perhaps that might be more appropriate after all as it appeared there was a big bug in the software to me. I also thought of your solution but it still has bugs in it. Here is what I heard from the support team and my response.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for your patience while I was reviewing your file and for letting us know about this issue.
The issue with your slide 1.3 is that the Freeform answer choices are being covered by the background object 'Rectangle 12' when the answers are set to shuffle. It occurs when previewing and when viewing the HTML5 output in Chrome. I’ve logged it as a possible software bug.
As a workaround, you can remove the shuffle in your freeform slides. Here's a Peek that demonstrates this workaround:
https://articulate.fyi/2Mr1pMR
I've edited your project file and removed the shuffle in your Free-from slides from 'Can you hear me' & 'Hear Bank 2' Question banks. You may download it here:
https://articulate.fyi/2Iw1Gvr
From here, I’ll meet with my team to take a closer look so we can determine the next steps. Sometimes my team catches errors in my logic, and we don’t have a bug after all. Of course, if that’s the case, I’ll let you know!
Depending on priority and risk, some bugs can be fixed quickly, while others take longer to resolve. Here's more information on how we identify and tackle bugs:
https://articulate.com/support/article/How-We-Tackle-Bugs
I’ll let you know as soon as we have an update on this issue. Thanks so much again for letting us know about this, and I’m sorry if it’s slowing you down.
My response:
Possible bug? THIS MAKES NO SENSE. THESE SLIDES WERE WORKING PERFECTLY BEFORE! THEY WERE EXTENSIVELY TESTED!!! Here is a previous version of this module in which they were working https://360.articulate.com/review/content/9d7fe734-2018-473f-a671-5485d9e2dbd1/review
This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Rectangle 12 covers the whole slide so why are only the buttons affected? These slides may not seem important to you but they are vital to me and the shuffle function is especially vital. [Without a sound check my students sometimes try to view them without sound - just clicking anywhere on the screen until they get the right place].
I WANT the buttons to shuffle just like I want other question slides to have shuffles in them. Shuffling is important for students who often look over at another students screen to see what they choose. Mostly they pick up the location of the click so shuffling is important. Shuffling is in a LOT of my work! If you offer a product - it ought to be able to work.
I removed rectangle 12 and made a background instead. However - now I am having trouble with a button disappearing after a time period - all are set to remain til the end so that makes no sense to me. Sometimes the disappearing button is the one needed to click on!!!! Also the buttons are not all working to take the user to the correct slide.
THIS is NOT appropriate. I spent hours getting these slides to work properly and what you are telling me through your bug policy is that:
1. At anytime Articulate can make an update that will render my hours of work useless.
2. Articulate can decide that whatever they did to affect my work is a bug or not. If not - no help.
3. Even if Articulate decides it is a bug, they decide whether to address it or not. If not - no help. You are telling me that I do not count - only if I am part of a large majority affected?
4. Even if they decide to address it, They can take their own sweet time about it - so likely this will not be done under MY DEADLINES - so no help. My problem must be prioritized? How do you prioritize the education of middle school students? EVEN THIS TWO DAYS LATER IS NOT GOING TO WORK - AND EVEN THEN THE SOLUTION IS NOT A GOOD ONE.
So you are saying that at any time Articulate can take their program, make a change that wipes out hours of work, makes my work unusable without notice to me, (I was lucky to catch this during summer) AND the most likely outcome is that I am out of luck to put it mildly. I work with MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS - THESE HAVE TO BE PERFECT EVERY TIME AND WORK WHEN NEEDED. It will completely mess up the course progress otherwise and their comprehesion. This is to help students who have difficulty learning - so the progression needs to be perfect. BTW - this work is ALL volunteer - I have paid for Articulate for years and years on my own dime (I started with the version before the 09 version although with a different email) and all the years of working on these modules and years of in the classroom time were completely uncompensated - other than knowing that the students REALLY learned and gained confidence in themselves - especially those who had little confidence before. Parents stop me and tell me their high school student aced their high school test because of what they learned in middle school. Former students send me facebook message from college saying what they learned in my class in 6th grade is still helping them. Some of them chose their careers right in my classroom. I have enjoyed and benefited from this community as well. I believed in Articulate and staked my money and my time in it - in a big way. Articulate, this community and I changed lives together but now this volunteer is losing heart. I have struggled through my steep learning curve, pushed myself to master techniques to benefit my students, watched tutorials and webinars utilizing the practice files, deconstructed freebie templates, added hours to my workload to make it just that much more engaging, to make learning based on doing not telling, to make this a learning tool like no other. I paid for new updates to make the learning better even when the price got steeper and steeper and while my own funds got smaller and smaller. I wanted my students to have the advantage each new update brought through the new possibilities it opened up. I worked on my own time - up late, back again up early, weekends - you name it. I pushed on for love of my students and teaching and seeing the affect it had on them. But this has threatened to topple my resolve when all else could not.
I am at a loss - how can I work hard on these for my students while not knowing if what I worked so hard to get working, will still work? Not knowing whether it will be detrimental by assigning something that doesn't work? I can't tell you how badly that would affect the students and their trust in me. Will new updates continue to detrimentally affect previous functions? How will I find the problems? Will I get them fixed in time? Will I EVER be able to count on Articulate? Is Articulate worthy of my trust?
Hi Robin,
I can't tell you how how saddened I am to hear that we've let you down. You've been a long-time and loyal Articulate user and a valued member of our community. What's more, I love that you're using our products to do some good in the world.
I myself was a middle school teacher. I know what it's like to go in early, stay late, and give up weekends to create learning experiences that students will remember long after they leave the classroom. You've sacrificed so much of yourself, your time, and your resources—it's inspiring. Those middle school years are crucial for kids, and your students are so lucky to have a teacher who is willing to go above and beyond to see them succeed.
I want to apologize for all the frustration and extra work this bug has caused you. We made a mistake, and correcting this issue is a major priority for us. We've got all eyes on it until we have a solution in place. Until then, we want to do all we can to make this right for you. Since the workarounds we offered aren't viable options, we'd love to help you install a previous update of Storyline 360, which will have your course working just the way it was before you updated your software. Please take a look at the rollback steps Renson recently shared with you via email, and let us know if you have any questions about that.
I want you to know we're working really hard to ensure that unexpected bugs don't sneak into new releases in the future. We're so sorry again that we've had this impact on you, Robin. I hope the insight I shared will help regain some of the love we lost from you.
Ashley,
Thank you for passing along my concerns. The support team contacted me with regard to instructions on how to return to a previous working version of Articulate.
My concern was not only with the update disrupting previously working functions but also with the statement referring this disruption to the usual bug identification and fixing Articulate policy as stated below:
First, our team will assess how the feature’s current behavior differs from the behavior we intended. Sometimes there’s an error with our product documentation or user behavior rather than a bug. We want to eliminate that possibility first.
If we confirm that there's a software bug, we work as a team to prioritize the problem. We’ll look at how many customers the bug affects and how seriously those customers are impacted.
We’ll also talk about how difficult the bug is to fix and if fixing it might cause other problems with the software.
Once we’ve prioritized the bug, it goes into our development team’s work queue in order of priority. Of course, bugs that affect larger numbers of people or have a significant impact on users will always be tackled first.
I reacted as I did because of this alarming and rather cavalier attitude towards the length of time users put into meticulously crafting a tool to meet their goals and deadlines - whether it affects a lot or a few. Any disruption of previous function should be a high priority item. I love having new features in Articulate 360 (which is why I am paying for the annual subscription) but I would hope that the new features and their effects on previous features arrive properly tested. Please do not use us as your field testers. Another support team member assured me that the focus for the next updates will be on bug fixes.
We also need a better system to find out about known bugs and how-to issues. [Case in point - slides would not advance if there was an arrow on the following slide - the issue that unknowingly originated this thread. I spent a lot of time trying to resolve this problem before contacting you]. This is wasted time if there is already a known bug. Perhaps you could add additional identification lines to user posts that would be under Articulate control so that Articulate staff could add consistent search terms that more appropriately highlight the core issues so users could easily find pertinent information. This is sometimes very hard to do for many different areas in Articulate. For this problem, we did not know what was causing it so would never have gotten the correct search term. This is a great need and would be extremely useful to all your users. I would imagine it would also significantly decrease the number of posts Articulate would have to respond to since there would be less duplication if people are more easily finding answers to their queries.
Again, as always, thank you for your help and time spent trying to identify and fix the problem. It is very much appreciated. I look forward to a better system of updates with more extensive prior testing and a better system of communication with your users in the future.
FYI - Ashley, I crafted my latest reply before seeing your new post. I appreciate that the area of more prior testing for updates is being addressed but I also strongly recommend a better system for communication.
Again, thank you.
Hi Robin,
I saw Victor reached out and shared some more information with you, but I wanted to say on behalf of Alyssa, Victor, and the rest of the team here - thank you for all your time, insight, and honesty.
We've shared your comments here and in your case with our team and we're all working to prevent a similar situation in the future.
If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to reach out!
Hi again Robin,
Great news! We just released another update for Articulate 360, and included a few important fixes that you'll see in the release notes here.
The item you'll be interested in is:
Fixed: In drag-and-drop interactions, drag items might return to their original positions during quiz review or be hidden by other objects.
Just launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button for Storyline 360. Details here.
Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.