Long save times

May 22, 2016

I've reviewed previous discussions and know that as the file size/number of slides increases, the save time increases. I'm interested to know if this is stored somewhere? I split a very long course into 2 parts because of how long it was taking to save the file. I took the original file and deleted the slides from the initial course and just kept my 4 template slides. However, this whittled down course (5 slides) still takes a very long time to save. I will likely just create a new, fresh course; but was just wondering why this would happen? I'm thinking something is being stored in a cache that retains the original slide.

For future reference, it would be helpful to know what causes long save times and how that can be prevented.

Many thanks!

Lu

6 Replies
Leslie McKerchie

Hi Lu!

Some things that could be still included in your file which are expanding the file size are slide masters or screen recordings that are not in use, so you may want to look at removing those. Also, when you delete the elements and save Storyline, if you're still looking at the file size of that project while having Storyline open the file size will not change as those items are still accessible with the "undo" button. 

Do you experience the same behavior if you import your file into a new file? Also, you may want to take a look at the info here on Unexpected or Erratic Behavior in SL2, and let us know if you find improvement or if issues still persist. 

Joseph Benton

I don't know why but when I imported a PowerPoint presentation of 88 slides, I got 88 untitled Slide Masters that appeared and I wasted most of the day trying to clean them out to reduce save times. After reading much of the comments and complaints here, it looks like I'm just going to need to invest in faster hardware.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi, Joseph.

Did you have slide masters set up within Powerpoint as well? Those would follow as a part of the import process so I'd expect to see them in your Storyline file too. 

Deleting out extra slides, master slides, screen recordings, etc. will always be a good practice to keep your file size down and the overall saving time as short as possible.

Joseph Benton

It would be so much faster if you could call.

After all this, I decided to start new files and then import fewer slides
FROM the file I had a hard time saving from as it was humorous in size and
had all these extra slide masters.

So, even though I deleted all the extra slide masters, when I imported 12
slides I still got 12 new duplicate slide masters in the brand new
presentation.

The problem is that these extra slide masters bogs down performance and IT
IS A BUG.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi, Joseph.

I'd love to have my team take a look at the steps you're going through to confirm what you're seeing. Then if we can see the same, we'll get it reported as a possible software bug. 

From there, we'll follow the process detailed here on how we identify and tackle bugs.

I was able to find the case you opened for this, and that my colleague Miker is taking a look. I'll follow along as he works with you! 

Joseph Benton

Alright.

I think you can easily do this.

Just start with a PowerPoint presentation with audio on each slide (mine
has 88 slides) and then import it.

Make a modification to a slide master and you'll see it'll just hang.

Remove all the slide masters and save and then create a new project and
import 12 slides (like I did) and you'll see that you will end up with 12
new slide masters that are all identical.

Your code should be able to identify duplicated slide masters after import,
so if you could just fix that then seriously you will have solved this
problem.

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