Hyperlinks do not work on course played from a CD

Hi Jeremy and welcome to Heroes!

When you publish content for CD or another offline location (DVD, kiosk, etc.), hyperlinks in the published output will always open in Internet Explorer—even if a different browser is the default browser. Content published for CD launches in a form that's based on Internet Explorer, which is why hyperlinks also open in Internet Explorer. You mentioned it only occurs once burned to a CD - are you checking that you've burned all the files in the output folder to the CD - not just one file?

When I publish the course Storyline automatically puts the files in this location:

story_content\external_files

All of the files are there.

Hi Jeremy,

Yup - that's where they all should be. And when you burn the files to the disk, are you burning the entire contents of the published folder to the CD? I don't know that I have any CDs handy to try this myself - but maybe if you're able to post it here another community member could try to burn it to a CD.

I am having the same issue - this time it is with the print results button, and the embedded pdf document. Everything is burned correctly to the CD, but when I launch it, IE crashes if I try to open the pdf, or click on the print results button. The message I get is that IE had to stop unexpectedly. I have followed all the steps to correctly publish and burn to CD, so what could be wrong?

Hi Shanti,

What version of IE are you running? Can you test in a different version or on a different computer? Prior to burning to the CD have you tried the published output from the local drive? 

I'm having the same problem. Has a fix been found?

Hi Martin,

As you can see this thread is a bit older and I didn't hear back from Shanti or Jeremy from my latest replies. Have you already reviewed the information shared above? Can you tell us what exactly is the issue you're running into since this thread is a bit older? Also what version/update of Storyline are you using? 

I've got a Storyline2 course which works fine online, but creating a CD-ROM version (correctly, with the external files in the right place) links to PDF files attempt to open a browser but consistently trigger an "Internet Explorer has stopped working correctly" error. Happens on IE11.0.9600 on two different machines. My Storyline is Update 7:1509.1408

Hi Martin,

Thanks for sharing a bit more info. Did you run the CD publish locally or from it being burned to a CD or placed on a USB? 

I don't understand your question. I published to a shared drive and then burned the files onto a CD-ROM.

Hi Martin,

I didn't know if you were playing the content locally or had already burned it to a CD. First, we do always recommend working on files and publishing to a local drive as detailed here.  So what I would suggest is try publishing the files locally  using the Publish to CD option, and then run the Launch_story.exe file locally to see how it behaves and then compare that when you're able to burn the newly published files to CD. 

Hi Ashley,

I'm currently having this problem with links that point to a URL. Here's my process:

1. Publish my Storyline 1 file as CD output.
2. Transfer entire output folder from my computer to a USB drive
3. Transfer entire output folder from USB drive to a location on a new computer
4. Place a shortcut to the story.html file on the desktop and launch the course.
5. Clicking on links to web pages or email does nothing.

Hi Heather,

If you use a USB drive or network drive to deploy your course, learners should copy the files to their local hard drive, then double-click the Launch_Story.exe file to play the course. Is there a reason you're looking to link to the story.html file vs. using the Launch_Story.exe file? I'd want to know if the links open that way as well. 

I'm having problems with publishing to CD also. The only thing I can think of to do for linking to my PDF files is to put copies of those files into the folder where the course will be published and change the links to that location (means creating a separate SL2 file for the CD format). Anyone else have success doing something else? I initially published to CD on my computer and when I click the links the pdfs open in IE.  This will not help for putting on a flash drive to be used by users who do not have internet access.  Ideas, thoughts???

If you click the links and the files open, when you copy the folder to the flash drive, everything will be there, including the .pdf files.

Thanks Walt.  It seems to me that the SL2 publish to CD isn't really for totally offline??? I really need it to work on computers in the jungle who have no internet.  If I test it on my computer with my computer being offline the files don't always open???Thanks for answering!

Hey Sylvia!  When you publish for CD, the course will use Internet Explorer and Flash Player to launch and display content, but it won't need an internet connection.  Like Walt said, your resources should be included in your published output so that they can be accessed without being online.

We are happy to have a look at your file to help figure out what is going on!

Thanks Crystal.  Let me look at the files and see if they are in the published output and try it again.  I'll get back to you here on it . Crystal, one thought.  It could be because of the current problems with flash not being supported.  I'm not certain on IE, but Firefox and Chrome are phasing it out because of security issues, I think. UGH--- then what? At any rate, I'll give it a shot and see.

Got it- so you'll just want to be sure that Adobe Flash Player 10.3 or later is enabled in Internet Explorer on the machine where you want the course to play locally.

So if I am sending flashdrives with the course, it could be helpful to also include the latest version of Adobe Flash Player :)?

That's a great thought, Slyvia! :)