LMS connection error on Mac Safari

Apr 03, 2014

Scott L
By Scott L

I work on a PC, but my client is on a Mac and typically uses the default Safari web browser. Between him and several other people doing tests, we are consistent getting an error when launching a course in our LMS.

Pressing OK shows this first level of detail:

The course is published as the Flash version, for SCORM 1.2 (which the LMS supports). This error is not seen on Mac + Safari or Mac + Chrome, and also not seen on PCs in any browser.

Here is a Safari console error message:

Pressing OK in this second box then displays several lines of debug output messages (not shown here). It looks like this is generated from the API.js file via the winDebug object.

I'm curious if others publish SCORM 1.2 courses and test/view them on Mac + Safari. Anybody? And if so, have you encountered this before? Anybody know if this is a known issue in the current version of SL? It was published with the latest Update 5.

I may also need to figure out if there is something unique or problematic with our specific LMS, too.

Any thoughts or info is appreciated!

5 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
10 years ago04/03/14 at 1:27 pm (UTC)

Hi Scott,

If you receive an "Unable to acquire LMS API" error when launching Articulate content in your LMS, this may be caused by the version of Java that you have installed.

Some LMS’s use a Java API object to load content.  Since content created in Articulate does not require Java, please do the following:

*  Contact your LMS provider and ensure that your installed version of Java is compatible with the version of the LMS you are using.
*  Ensure that you have published your content properly as described in the following article.

Scott L
10 years ago04/03/14 at 1:45 pm (UTC)

Very interest insight, Ashley. Our LMS might use a Java API (not 100% certain, and I can check).

Thanks for the publishing article - I'm good and acquainted with the maneuvering for that stuff (but always good to check).

We have several other courses that were developed without Storyline that don't elicit this error, which is why my first thoughts are towards Storyline versus the LMS itself. And I'm not certain if this explains why the error doesn't occur with other browsers on the Mac, or in browsers on PCs. For example (I'm on a PC myself) I can view courses that we've put into the LMS and I never see that error. Do you have any thoughts on that perspective?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
10 years ago04/03/14 at 1:50 pm (UTC)

Hi Scott, 

You could always test it by publishing the course to SCORM Cloud which is an industry standard testing method for SCORM content. If the same users (with the browser issue) receive the error there, that would tell us it's something in your Storyline file. Since it seems to be specific to a few users, I'm guessing there is a setting within their browser, computer, etc. that is impacting how the Java API is being called from your LMS. 

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.