Going from timeline to other program causes crash

Mar 07, 2013

James Brandwood
By James Brandwood

Hi Everybody,

I have been getting this one for awhile, and again it is a fault related to the preview/timeline in Storyline but I can't see any menion of it elsewhere so I was wondering if anyone else is getting this fault.

If I use the timeline preview and then move a few items around on the timeline and then click on a different program without having clicked anywhere else on Storyline (i.e. emails or on the software the training is about) Storyline crashes.  It doesn't if yo umove things around on the timeline without having had a preview first.

It's not just sometimes - it is inevitable. I do realise I could easily work around it by always clicking somewhere else on Storyline before I click on something else but sometimes I forget to. Actually usually when I move things around on the timeline I save my work before doing another preview anyway, since storyline previews are so good at crashing.

Would love to hear if anyone else is getting this issue.

Thanks.

8 Replies
James Brandwood
11 years ago03/14/13 at 8:50 pm (UTC)

Hi Peter,

I appologise for not doing the ticket yet but the work I am doing has exceeded it's timeframe (this fault doesn't help) but I will get to it.

I thought I would quickly add this screen here, which shows me having been moving items on the timeline to sync them and then the windows update popped up and Storyline crashed. So it seems I don't have to click on another program after using the timeline, one just has to become the active window.

James Brandwood
11 years ago03/26/13 at 1:30 am (UTC)

Hi Peter,

Being that I am right at the end of a training module and these faults (this ones, the low memory can't save fault and the timeline preview crashing when you play it) tend to be more prevalent on larger files I thought I would pester IT until they gave me a 64 bit computer. hey finally did - sadly only on loan for a day to test things out on.

My current project's file size is 82420kb (mid range for me) and has been causing me a lot of problems on my 32 bit machine.

I docked the 64 bit compuer with dual screens (DVI) and applied the patch Johnathan mentions in this thread:

http://community.articulate.com/forums/t/19953.aspx

I then went about my work and found it didn't crash. So then I went about trying to make it crash. I opened two Storyline files, a bunch of news stories on a IE tabs, snag it, Outook, task manager, published my Storyline work, played the published file and switched between them all while running a timeline preview and after having just done a preview. It still didn't crash and and the timeline preview, published storyline file and feed on the NCAA championships were all running at once (how good is FGCU by the way) 

I did note that that the available RAM shown on the performance tab on task manager got a low as 2.4gb (out of the 8gb installed). Which is about 1.6gb more than my normal work computer has. I also noticed that when you closed Storyline or simply stopped doing performace hungry tasks like previewing that it didn't seem to give the RAM back. This would explain why saving and closing the program and reopening it helps prevent crashes.

So from this trial I think it is plain to see that Storyline monsters your computer's RAM once your file size starts getting bigger and really if you are going to make bigger files and need to run other applications (for instance I have to run a virtual environment to access some applications I do training on) than you are going to need as much RAM as you can get.

Now I need to pester IT until they convert my computer to 64bit. They did offer to help by putting in 8gb of RAM into my 32 bit machine which wouldn't actually be very helpful... sometimes I worry about our IT. 

Peter Anderson
11 years ago03/26/13 at 7:16 am (UTC)

Hi James, 

FGCU is a lot of fun to watch

Thanks for putting Storyline through such thorough testing. Sounds like you got some really interesting results and findings. I hope your IT team can fulfill your needs to help Storyline run interrupted for you. It's my understanding that the team will continue trying to improve Storyline's memory performance as we continue to roll out future updates. 

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