Just to confirm, are you running the most recent update to Storyline 2 (update 1) and still experiencing this problem, correct?
If so, please try to make sure that you're working with local files.
Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior.
You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).
Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names.
Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.
Also, try to make sure that you're not running to may programs in the background. If you run Storyline on its own, with no other programs running, do you see the same error? Does this occur with everyone Storyline 2 file you try to save? Have you looked into conducting the repair detailed here?
I am having the same issue. I'm running only StoryLine 2. This is my first SL project...so I wouldn't think there's too much in a cache anywhere. I've even rebooted the computer several times. Each time I open SL2 and try to open the file, I get the same error that the project "Storyline" is being used by another process.
Were you able to go through the troubleshooting steps I shared above with CK? Specifically I'd look into conducting the repair as something may have happened during your installation and then you'll also want to confirm that you're working with local project files as I mentioned.
Please let us know if you're able to go through those steps and how it's behaving after.
Problem solved. Even though my Storyline files reside on the D drive, for some some reason it needs a large amount of space on the C drive too...obviously two separate drives. I'm not sure why storyline wants space on both drives when the file is not store on both of them....but freeing up the C drive solved the problem.
Drive is filling up again. I've located the problem...Articulate take note. Storyline is backing up files and never deleting or replacing older backups. So if you have a large project it fills up your drive really fast. Eventually any size project will fill up one's drive in time. I had 100 gigs of saved storyline backups in a hidden folder...which caused all these problems.
The backups are in Appdata/Roaming/Articulate/Storyline
This caused a huge headache for me and is memory hog time bomb waiting to affect everyone who uses Storyline extensively.
Have you had a lot of crashes with Storyline 2? It sounds like those are the "autorecovery" files - and that each time Storyline crashes or has to create an autorecovery it's starting a new file.
I'm going to reach out to our QA team to confirm if this is the case or if there may be something else going on. How large are the .story files you're working on that you're seeing back ups of?
It really hasn't crashed that much...maybe a few times. Storyline has been pretty stable for me.
Yes, they do appear to be autorecovery files. In the folder I mentioned there were over 200 files ranging from 16 megs to 1.4 gigs. The 'recovery' size appears to be the same as the project size...totaling approx 100 gigs of data. The only reason it didn't keep growing was because I ran out of disk space and had to delete and move around other files to unknowingly accommodate this.
Thanks CK1 - for the 200 files, are those all different Storyline projects, or are there a lot of duplicates of the same file - separated by when they were recovered?
It's only for 3 projects. Yes, they appear to be duplicates of the same project. I deleted most of the files, but here's a screenshot of what it looks like. As you can see, a large project that keeps duplicating itself will eat up memory really quick.
Thanks CK1 - I added that image and additional information to the report I filed and I'll be in touch here once I hear from our QA team, but in the meantime I'm glad you're able to delete the troublesome files and continue working.
Our Engineering Team has helped us to understand how our AutoRecovery feature works. Here's a summary:
At an interval defined by you (10 minutes by default) Storyline 2 checks to see if the currently open project has been modified and not saved. If there are unsaved pending changes, an AutoRecovery file is created for the project inside the %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Articulate\Storyline\ folder. This AutoRecovery file is named using a format like this:
<original project name><creation time stamp of the file>.tmp
So, if you were working on a file called "example.story" the AutoRecovery name might look like example635502380729253410.tmp.
As long as the .story project file name doesn't change, Storyline 2 should keep overwriting the same AutoRecovery .tmp file over and over again. So, if you have a single project open for a long time, it should only result in one simple .tmp file that keeps getting overwritten with the latest AutoRecovery data. When the project is closed (either by opening a new project, or closing Storyline), then any .tmp file that was created for AutoRecovery purposes should be deleted. If Storyline crashed or there was an error trying to delete the .tmp file, then it would obviously stick around.
In summary: As long as the name of the project and the creation timestamp of the project file didn't change, a single project should have only left a single .tmp file behind. So, even if Storyline 2 was failing to clean up properly, we shouldn't be taking up massive amounts of disk space.
As a result, I have a few clarifying questions:
Is it possible that you have been making copies of the same project file (or performing the "Save As" function) with a new filename each time?
Is it possible that you have been making copies of the same project file but keeping the name of the project the same?
Is it possible that some kind of backup or anti-malware software is manipulating the file creation timestamp on a single project file?
Are you still experiencing this behavior often?
Thanks in advance for helping us to understand what might be going on with your machine!
I have increased my virtual machine memory size to 100GB and after using Storyline 2 for one week, my memory is completely gone. I can't find the files in the appdata folder; it is storing them somewhere else? Ugh, still having saving issues & client is getting antsy
I'm having the same problem. The temp files are not purging from the AppData file.... See my screenshot.... And this is not an isolated issue, it keeps happening. I did not have these problems in SL1. It's really cutting into my workflow - I would appreciate if there would be another fix to this soon or I will just have to use SL1 to keep working efficiently.
Hi Ashley - I have been having the same problem with a file I'm working on. I have just carried out the temp cleanup (your 4-step process above) and it looked like it was going to work but , right at the end of the save, I now have this error:
The project file could not be saved. There was an error generating the XML document.
I tried saving it with a different name as well but with no luck. Any ideas?
Are you also using Update 5 of Storyline 2? I know that specific error message was dealt with as a part of the update so if you're still seeing it I imagine we're going to want to take a look at a sample file. Are you able to see if importing that file into a new one allows it to work well? What about in a brand new file that you've ensured is saved to your local drive?
I'm having the same issues too I can't even open my project now....this is stressing me out as I'm on very tight deadline....can someone help fix this?
Hi Graham - Ashley's reply did it for me - try these steps:
Open Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address field, and press Enter.
When your temp directory opens, press Ctrl+A to select all the temp files, then press the Delete key on your keyboard. A few temp files may currently be in use that can't be deleted. When prompted, you can skip those. You can now save your project file.
Hi, Graham -- To reiterate what Ashley suggested, were you able to see if importing that file into a new one allows it to work well? What about in a brand new file that you've ensured is saved to your local drive? If issues persist, you are welcome to share your file or a sample here so we can take a look, or since you mentioned you are on tight deadline, you are welcome to work directly with our Support Staff. Please use this link to submit your case.
40 Replies
Hi CK1,
Just to confirm, are you running the most recent update to Storyline 2 (update 1) and still experiencing this problem, correct?
If so, please try to make sure that you're working with local files.
Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.
Also, try to make sure that you're not running to may programs in the background. If you run Storyline on its own, with no other programs running, do you see the same error? Does this occur with everyone Storyline 2 file you try to save? Have you looked into conducting the repair detailed here?
I am having the same issue. I'm running only StoryLine 2. This is my first SL project...so I wouldn't think there's too much in a cache anywhere. I've even rebooted the computer several times. Each time I open SL2 and try to open the file, I get the same error that the project "Storyline" is being used by another process.
Hi Heather and welcome to Heroes!
Were you able to go through the troubleshooting steps I shared above with CK? Specifically I'd look into conducting the repair as something may have happened during your installation and then you'll also want to confirm that you're working with local project files as I mentioned.
Please let us know if you're able to go through those steps and how it's behaving after.
Hi Heather!
Did you go through the troubleshooting steps that Ashley shared above?
Problem solved. Even though my Storyline files reside on the D drive, for some some reason it needs a large amount of space on the C drive too...obviously two separate drives. I'm not sure why storyline wants space on both drives when the file is not store on both of them....but freeing up the C drive solved the problem.
Thanks for sharing CK1!
Drive is filling up again. I've located the problem...Articulate take note. Storyline is backing up files and never deleting or replacing older backups. So if you have a large project it fills up your drive really fast. Eventually any size project will fill up one's drive in time. I had 100 gigs of saved storyline backups in a hidden folder...which caused all these problems.
The backups are in Appdata/Roaming/Articulate/Storyline
This caused a huge headache for me and is memory hog time bomb waiting to affect everyone who uses Storyline extensively.
Hi CK1,
Have you had a lot of crashes with Storyline 2? It sounds like those are the "autorecovery" files - and that each time Storyline crashes or has to create an autorecovery it's starting a new file.
I'm going to reach out to our QA team to confirm if this is the case or if there may be something else going on. How large are the .story files you're working on that you're seeing back ups of?
It really hasn't crashed that much...maybe a few times. Storyline has been pretty stable for me.
Yes, they do appear to be autorecovery files. In the folder I mentioned there were over 200 files ranging from 16 megs to 1.4 gigs. The 'recovery' size appears to be the same as the project size...totaling approx 100 gigs of data. The only reason it didn't keep growing was because I ran out of disk space and had to delete and move around other files to unknowingly accommodate this.
Thanks CK1 - for the 200 files, are those all different Storyline projects, or are there a lot of duplicates of the same file - separated by when they were recovered?
It's only for 3 projects. Yes, they appear to be duplicates of the same project. I deleted most of the files, but here's a screenshot of what it looks like. As you can see, a large project that keeps duplicating itself will eat up memory really quick.
Thanks CK1 - I added that image and additional information to the report I filed and I'll be in touch here once I hear from our QA team, but in the meantime I'm glad you're able to delete the troublesome files and continue working.
Good Afternoon, CK1.
Our Engineering Team has helped us to understand how our AutoRecovery feature works. Here's a summary:
At an interval defined by you (10 minutes by default) Storyline 2 checks to see if the currently open project has been modified and not saved. If there are unsaved pending changes, an AutoRecovery file is created for the project inside the %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Articulate\Storyline\ folder. This AutoRecovery file is named using a format like this:
<original project name><creation time stamp of the file>.tmp
So, if you were working on a file called "example.story" the AutoRecovery name might look like example635502380729253410.tmp.
As long as the .story project file name doesn't change, Storyline 2 should keep overwriting the same AutoRecovery .tmp file over and over again. So, if you have a single project open for a long time, it should only result in one simple .tmp file that keeps getting overwritten with the latest AutoRecovery data. When the project is closed (either by opening a new project, or closing Storyline), then any .tmp file that was created for AutoRecovery purposes should be deleted. If Storyline crashed or there was an error trying to delete the .tmp file, then it would obviously stick around.
In summary: As long as the name of the project and the creation timestamp of the project file didn't change, a single project should have only left a single .tmp file behind. So, even if Storyline 2 was failing to clean up properly, we shouldn't be taking up massive amounts of disk space.
As a result, I have a few clarifying questions:
Thanks in advance for helping us to understand what might be going on with your machine!
I have increased my virtual machine memory size to 100GB and after using Storyline 2 for one week, my memory is completely gone. I can't find the files in the appdata folder; it is storing them somewhere else? Ugh, still having saving issues & client is getting antsy
Hi Wendy,
We released Update 4 of Storyline 2 on Friday which dealt with a number of the issues associated with saving and temp files detailed here.
I'm having the same problem. The temp files are not purging from the AppData file.... See my screenshot.... And this is not an isolated issue, it keeps happening. I did not have these problems in SL1. It's really cutting into my workflow - I would appreciate if there would be another fix to this soon or I will just have to use SL1 to keep working efficiently.
Hi Jon,
We're now on Update 5 of Storyline 2, which you can download here. Also, the release notes which detail all the fixes are here.
You can also empty the temp folder, you'll just want to follow the steps here:
Hi Ashley - I have been having the same problem with a file I'm working on. I have just carried out the temp cleanup (your 4-step process above) and it looked like it was going to work but , right at the end of the save, I now have this error:
The project file could not be saved. There was an error generating the XML document.
I tried saving it with a different name as well but with no luck. Any ideas?
Hi Jane,
Are you also using Update 5 of Storyline 2? I know that specific error message was dealt with as a part of the update so if you're still seeing it I imagine we're going to want to take a look at a sample file. Are you able to see if importing that file into a new one allows it to work well? What about in a brand new file that you've ensured is saved to your local drive?
I'm having the same issues too I can't even open my project now....this is stressing me out as I'm on very tight deadline....can someone help fix this?
Hi Graham - Ashley's reply did it for me - try these steps:
Open Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address field, and press Enter.
When your temp directory opens, press Ctrl+A to select all the temp files, then press the Delete key on your keyboard.
A few temp files may currently be in use that can't be deleted. When prompted, you can skip those.
You can now save your project file.
Tried that and no joy...still getting the stupid message "The project "Storyline" is locked by another process.
Hi, Graham -- To reiterate what Ashley suggested, were you able to see if importing that file into a new one allows it to work well? What about in a brand new file that you've ensured is saved to your local drive? If issues persist, you are welcome to share your file or a sample here so we can take a look, or since you mentioned you are on tight deadline, you are welcome to work directly with our Support Staff. Please use this link to submit your case.
Hi Guys,
The issue was Dropbox!
When I turned that off the problem went away!
Thank you for your help!
Sent from my iPhone
Awesome! Glad to hear all is well, Graham, and we appreciate the update! :)