Flash / HTML5

Oct 23, 2020

Hi Community,

I have a simple question relating to the end of Flash at the close of the year.

If a course is published with the Flash / HTML5 setting (see below), will it still work as it should once Flash is no more?

I expect they will work OK but just want to double check...

Thanks in advance!Flash / HTML5

30 Replies
Lauren Connelly

Hello Deborah!

Great question! In this article, we've answered this question: How the End of Flash Affects Articulate Apps and Courses.

Do I need to republish courses that include both Flash and HTML5 output?

Articulate 360 and Storyline 3

Your published courses will continue to work if they include HTML5 output. Web browsers will simply ignore the Flash content and display the HTML5 version instead.

Storyline 1, Storyline 2, and Studio ‘13

Your published courses will continue to work if they include HTML5 output. Web browsers will simply ignore the Flash content and display the HTML5 version instead. However, HTML5 output from our legacy apps only works in Google Chrome and Safari. It won’t work reliably in other browsers.

We recommend that you upgrade to Storyline 3 or Articulate 360 (which includes both Storyline 360 and Studio 360) as these apps don’t have any Flash dependencies and their HTML5 output works in all major browsers.

Let us know if we can answer additional questions!
Ethree Online

Sorry to jump in on this thread but I am totally confused by all this lol.   How do I know if my courses include Flash?  We produce everything in Rise and use storyline elements.  I don't even remember seeing HTML or Flash anywhere when developed the courses so I don't know if I have a tonne of courses to change or none at all... the info above didnt help because I have no idea if my published courses contain HTML...     Can anyone give me the 'version for dummies' of this?

thanks

Deborah Kelly

Hi Jessica

I can't help you with this sorry. I only use Storyline 360

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Lauren Connelly

Hello Jessica!

I'm happy to help! It sounds like you're publishing courses in Storyline 360 to Review 360 and then using the Storyline block in Rise 360. Is this correct?

If so, your courses won't rely on Flash so you're all set. 

Courses that rely on Flash will include story_flash.html in the published output folder and won't work properly in up-to-date HTML5 browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.

Susan Riedemann

We are getting bombarded with calls/e-mails that the courses are no longer working.   We repackaged them with 360 and are not using Flash only - they all have HTML with them.  According to everything provided on your Community Site, this is all we needed to do.  Has this changed?  We have thousands of courses that we have repackaged in 360 getting ready for Flash going away and are very frustrated that the courses aren't working.  These are the older courses that were created prior to 360 and using the Classic Player.  Has anyone else been experiencing this?

Ren Gomez

Hi Susan,

I'm sorry to hear that you have some courses no longer working! It sounds like you've upgraded many of your older courses in 360 and included the HTML5 publish format in the Classic Player.

You've taken the right steps here, so I've opened a case on your behalf with our support engineers to lend a hand in testing your .story file of one of the courses that are causing issues. You should see an email arrive in the next few minutes with an upload link. 

As soon as you share it, we'll get notified immediately and get back to you with our results!

📚Resource: How the End of Flash Affects Articulate Apps and Courses
Leslie McKerchie

Hello Mohamad and welcome to E-Learning Heroes. 😊

Thanks for reaching out and sharing what you are experiencing.

You're correct. Adobe officially ended support for Flash (Jan. 12, 2021).

  • What version of Storyline are you currently using?
  • Are you publishing to HTML5?

We have some information about how this change affects your software and courses:

How the End of Flash Affects Articulate Apps and Courses

Leslie McKerchie

Thanks, Susan! I'm glad to hear that you're working with our team. My latest reply was to Mohammad. You're probably subscribed to the conversation in the forums and others are chiming in with their questions as well :)

If you need to unsubscribe, you can click 'View' in your e-mail vs. 'Reply' and scroll up to Unsubscribe. 

Your email signature also came through when you replied via email. You can remove that if needed by clicking ‘Edit’ beneath your response. Here’s a quick Peek video if you need help.

April  Bonner

So yesterday, the courses I have created in Storyline 2 or 360, started not  launching (we use a Server to launch via our LMS). The URLs end in .HTML. (But of course the packets contain all of the Flash and HTML5 back-ups.)

In Chrome we sometimes get a 404 error and sometimes redirects to the HTML5 link.

In IE a Flash message appears that explains about FLASH and recommends removing.

I knew about the Flash end of Life and addressed it within some non-articulate modules, but thought HTML links would be unaffected. 

So here's my question: Rather than locating and editing all of my links to go directly to HTML5 output or republishing them, will the problem be solved if Flash is removed from the Server where the modules reside? 

Robert Stryker

Hi Susan,

I just became aware of courses in my library that were produced in Storyline 360 with Flash>HTML5 fallback that are no longer working using the latest Microsoft Chromium Edge browser (a Flash icon appears linking to Adobe's Flash end of life page instead of course content).

The same courses work using the current Google Chrome browser. Perhaps you may check to see if your courses work using Google Chrome as well? I'd be interested to know.

Since Edge is my user-base preferred browser, I need to find a solution. Republishing may be required but it will be a very big job.

Robbi James

@Susan - We had a related issue with old course content authored in Captivate, with Flash components.  I had republished in HTML5 and tested all of these back in June to make sure they would work, and they did - with Flash disabled in my browser. I (and everyone on my team) was able to open and complete the courses.

FLASH forward to Jan 3 (see what I did there?  lol) - the calls start coming in that certain people are not able to even open these courses.  We couldn't figure out what was going on, because it was sporadic.  Finally we determined that they would run on any machine that had Flash previously installed - but they would not open on ANY machine that had never had Flash installed.  Not sure if that helps you, but it may help others who stumble across this thread.

Needless to say, I spent every waking hour for the past week week and a half re-authoring content in Rise 360/Storyline.  And I'm taking tomorrow off.  lol

Victor Madison

I have a client that was using Internet Explorer as their default browser.  Although I published their course as Flash/HTML, they would not run in Explorer. I was getting prepared for a lot of republishing. They switched to Google Chrome and my Storyline 3 courses run perfectly.  We are both happy campers!

-Vic

Leslie Shapiro

Hi Leslie,

I read the article and noted that Storyline 1 and 2 are not supported. I have a number of legacy courses that were originally built in 1 & 2 but have been upgraded (not recreated) to Storyline 3. I always used the "Flash with HTML5 backup" publish setting, even in the older software.

A few people are experiencing "Flash not supported" errors when trying to view these.  It's a small percentage, and I suspect it's a setting on the user end, but I was hoping someone could tell me what advice we should give these folks.  Should they try Chrome/Safari? 

Or is it best I re-import everything into a fresh Storyline 3 file and republish?

Thanks!

Robbi James

Hi Vic,

Just a heads up - Internet Explorer is no longer supported.  It's a huge security risk because it's no longer being patched, etc.  Also, our testing was done in Chrome last year and it was fine - but even in Chrome now, content republished in HTML5 won't open.  At first we thought it was tied to machines that never had Flash installed, but now it seems as other browsers release patches, they won't open our republished files either.  :-\

Lauren Connelly

Hi Leslie!

Great question! The learner should be able to view the course properly in Chrome. If viewing the course in Chrome still causes the "Flash not supported" message, then you'll want to republish the courses in Storyline 3 for HTML5 only.

If you run into any issues, don't hesitate to reach out to our Support Team.

Mike Mohr

Not sure about how this affecting anyone else but for courses published as Flash with HTML5 fallback, we are finding that those courses either get the flash error icon in the browser or they run but they don't show any images within the player - only audio. As with all perfect plans, we found some courses that slipped through the cracks. Even worse is we found out that those courses don't have a source file. Our solution for that has been to do screen recordings and do a quick rebuild. Unfortunately we can't even play those anymore. Does anyone know how to run a course like this or get Flash back for these kind of problems?