Play and Stop buttons greyed out in Timeline

Hi Emily,

I'm referring to the Play and Stop buttons used in the timeline during development.

I play directly from the timeline in order to insert cue points for syncing audio and objects but sometimes I can't use this function as the buttons are greyed out.

Thanks!

Hi Elissa, 

In that image you've shared they don't look greyed out - could you tell us under what conditions this function isn't working for you? Does it happen in all your Storyline files or only particular ones or on a certain slide? You could always begin by looking into the repair of Storyline.  You could also look at importing a file into a new file if you're only seeing this behavior within a particular file. 

Hello Elissa!

If the suggestions Ashley shared do not work, you could always attach your file here for us to look at.

Hi Michael,

Sorry that we're just getting back to you now - but our team doesn't work over the weekends, and we're catching up after a holiday break as well. 

Your image looks similar to Elissa's in that it's hard to determine the buttons are greyed out. You mentioned it worked at one point - but has stopped working recently (I assume)? Have you looked to confirm that you're working with all local project files as described here and have you also looked at conducting the repair of Storyline? 

Did anyone ever figure out what causes this? I am going through the exact same thing, the play and pause buttons displayed, but all of a sudden they didn't. They display fine on another project. I feel like there's some button I pressed in error.

Hi Donna,

Have you already looked into the other troubleshooting steps in this thread? I haven't seen this on my own project files yet, but I'd also want to confirm that you're working locally as mentioned above. 

I occasionally experience the same issue.  I am running Storyline 2 Update 4: 1501.717

I notice that it mostly happens when i have 2 instances of Storyline 2 open (2 separate SL files). 

Hi Bobbi, 

Thanks for the image - as I mentioned earlier I haven't experienced this yet, so I'd suggest going through the troubleshooting steps above in terms of working locally and conducting the repair. 

Michael, Thank you for the information! I have also discovered that moving around within the story file often seems to temporarily correct the issue.

This isn't a "show stopper" issue for me, just rather annoying.  My purpose for posting was mainly to identify that it does indeed also happen in SL2 (you mentioned you were using SL1 when it occurred for you).  Also, to point out that I notice it more frequently when I have 2 instances of SL open (2 separate SL files)... Hoping to provide a mechanism for SL team to be able to recreate the issue (and ultimately fix it!).  :-)

It is obviously a bug.
For me it happens when I have an audio file in the slide. Must be some problem re-accessing the audio file. 

Was this ever resolved?  I am experiencing the same problem still and it's pretty clunky to work with under tight deadlines.

I don't think it's been resolved, but for me, if I go to another slide or two, I can usually get the play buttons to work on those slides, then I return to the original slide and it's no longer grayed out. Hope that helps.

Hi Donna - just wanted to let you know that replying via your email includes your signature here. You're welcome to pop back in and edit out any personal information if you wish. :)

Thanks, Alyssa for the heads up!

I just experienced the same issue. I took Donn's suggestion and it worked..

Thanks!

Glad to hear it, Jane! Let us know if you've got any further questions!

Thanks, I just ran into this issue.  For what it's worth, I would like to add that the issue began when I shifted to working in a new scene.  I resolved it by finding working slides in a different scene. 

My story: I am working in a 7 scene project in AS2, and adding my narration audio files as a final step.  In scene 1 and scene 2, I was able to play the timeline and position objects, no problem.  Scenes 3 and 4 went OK, but then I reached Scene 5.  Scene 5 was already heavily populated with audio files, because of a scenario that was recorded earlier in development.  Only a few slides required my new narration files, but the play button was greyed out and I lost the ability to note my cue times for how I was going to position objects on the timeline.  I went back to scenes 3 and 4: also greyed out (uh-oh).  I went back to scene 2, and the play button was operating as expected.  Returned to scene 5?  All good all the sudden.  Whew! 

Thanks for the workaround, folks.  You are saving my team valuable time.

Thanks for popping in to share Ieva :) This is a great community!

Hi there, folks.  In order for our team to determine what is causing the issue of the timeline preview buttons intermittently becoming disabled, could you answer a few questions?

• What version of Windows are you running?
• Do the buttons appear functional at first and then become disabled?  Or are they disabled from the very beginning of working on the project?
• Does the size of the project seem to affect this behavior?  What's the average size of project where you see this behavior?

Hopefully if we work together, we can find some common denominators on this elusive issue!

· I run AS2 on two different devices, running Windows 7 and Windows 10 respectively, and I’m afraid I can’t recall which project gave me the greyed out play/stop buttons.

· The buttons are functional at first. Then they grey out. The workaround suggested by other users—that you find a slide somewhere else in the project where the buttons work, and then return to the problem slide—worked for me. The buttons became functional again.

· I have only seen this issue in one project, although I have colleagues who have experienced this. My project was more than one scene, perhaps 40-60 slides at that point?

Thank you for looking into this for us!

I've experienced this on several different projects, which varied in size. I was using Windows 7. The buttons worked initially, but at some point became grayed out. Once I found a slide that the buttons worked, they also worked on the original slide as well.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Donna - that sounds similar to what we've heard so far and we have the issue reported to our team. We'll keep you posted!

I also have this problem occasionally. I work on a Mac and use Parallels and Windows 7. I notice it when I'm working in a video-heavy file and have used the same workaround as others report -- moving to a different slide until the buttons "show up" again.  The save/close/open cycle doesn't  seem to help. 

Thanks for letting us know those details, Lyn. We'll keep you updated as soon as we have news to share about this issue!