Is my storyline file too big?
Dec 14, 2018
I'm working on a course with 4 modules that will contain approximately 1200 slides in total. All the slides have been created in separate files each holding anywhere from 10 to 75 slides, depending on content.
I am now in the process of assembling the whole thing. Storyline 360 is getting more and more sluggish as I add slides to the main file, but was, until now, running fairly smoothly.
With approximately half of my slides in it, I now have a 140 Mb file and Storyline is responding very slowly. It takes anywhere from 30 to 60 secs between clicks for the program to respond. It's getting to a point where it is unworkable. Now I can't even save my changes, because I get all sorts of "out of memory" messages.
My PC is faily new and has 16Mb of RAM. Is my file too big or is it corrupt?
15 Replies
Storyline is a 32bit application so it will only use 2GB of your memory. If it's maxing that out, you'll start seeing behavior like that.
Can you use Rise to present the storyline parts broken up into smaller modules?
What type of content is on the slide? I was helping someone once who had about 1000 slides, but the 1000 slides had a lot of screen recordings with repeated show, try, test modules. In reality the content was more like 3000 slides.
Also, the person was really using Storyline to serve somewhat as an LMS to manage multiple modules within a larger course. She basically had one course that was really holding a few hundred courses.
1000 slides is a lot and at some point you'll consume all of your memory as Matt mentions. There may be ways to streamline some of your production. For example, persistent content can be moved to master slides. Images and videos could be compressed prior to bringing into Storyline so they don't eat all of your memory.
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There are no screen recordings, but many quizzes and results slides. Most slides have 1 or 2 layers. Most of the images have been resized to fit the story size (988x640). This is a game like course where the user acccumulates points. I'd say 85% of the course is in Storyline. The rest will be hosted in an LMS and the students will access the Storyline module through the LMS (D2L).
At some point, the file size jumped suddenly from 90 to 140 Mb after adding something like 10 or 15 new triggers. No new slides.
If I split the course into 4 modules, will it be possible to keep score between modules?
Daniel,
How do you get a smaller file size by using a shorter filename?
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Does anybody know if timeline length or duration affect filesize? Many of my slides have unncessary long timelines that could be shortened.
Numbers just don’t add up with this software. Below is a screen capture of different versions of this project I'm working on. To the right of the filesize, is the number of slides in each version.
From version (6) to version (7), we added 301 slides and the filesize went up by almost 60 Mb.
In version (8), we added 113 slides and filesize WENT DOWN by 43.5 Mb!
I decided to split the file by module.
Module 1 has only 376 slides, but it has a bigger filesize than the previous version (8) that contains 1001 slides! Module 2 is even worse with almost 20Mb more with approximately half the number of slides.
There seems to be no way to bring filesize down. Can someone explain this?
Hi there, JC. Would you be willing to work more closely with a support engineer? You're right -- The numbers don't make sense on the surface, but we may be able to uncover what is actually being saved in the .story file (whether images with states or other media are repeating, for example). I don't want you wasting time waiting for your program to respond when you have projects to finish!
Hi Crystal,
Sure I can work with a support engineer.
Thanks
No problem, JC. I've opened a support case on your behalf with the details you've shared here so that you can work directly with a support engineer as Crystal shared above.
I am currently having the same problem. I have wasted so much time trying to save it. I had to save it as another name and was able to save the slides. I have over 1200 slides for my Safety Presentation. If there is any help on this issue please send it my way I am struggling with lost time on projects waiting to go to next slides take a minute or so.
Hey Kerry, Wow, 1200 slides in one course is a lot! I'm sure you have a good reason to attempt this. Still, it seems this is hitting the limits of Storyline 360's current ability to save.
Our team is investigating long term solutions to increase our capacity to save and publish increasingly more complex and voluminous courses to meet your needs. In the meantime, the immediate way around this is to break your course into smaller chunks.
I've created a case so we can update you on milestones along the way. I'd also love to take a look at your .story file if you're able to share. This will give our development team another use case to test against.
I am having this issue with projects averaging about 40-50 slides! I have uninstalled, rebooted then reinstalled and nothing is helping.
Hi Karen. Thanks for bringing this behavior to our attention!
This is a great opportunity for our Engineers to investigate further, where I shared your experience with them. Look out for an email from support@articulate.com, and I'll follow along.
As always, folks can work one-on-one with our Support team through this secure link! 👈
So the temporary work around i have found is to save the copy with a different name. This worked well for me on a nearly 2GB file. Now my problem is that i cannot get it to publish.
Hi there, David!
I see that you're working with Shiela on our Support team to see if we could isolate the cause of the crash. I know she is seeing the same problem with your file and is looking at the next best steps.
Thanks for bringing this up, and I'll follow your case!
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