Play and Stop buttons greyed out in Timeline
Oct 05, 2014
Sometimes my Play and Stop buttons are greyed out (and can't be used) in my Timeline in Storyline. What could be causing this, and how can I reactivate them?
Thanks!
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Hello Everyone! ✨
I'm happy to share that we have released a new update for Storyline 360 (Build 3.76.30446.0).
In this update, we have implemented a fix for:
- Timeline preview buttons weren't always clickable.
As a first step, I recommend updating Storyline 360 to the latest version. Here's how:
If you have any questions, please let us know in this thread or privately in a support case.
Have a great day!
85 Replies
Ashley or Ali, as staff can you please remove me from this thread, so that I stop getting emails? They've been coming for a year or three, and I've tried unsuccessfully several times to figure out how to stop them. Tonight I noticed, however, that this thread was saying "Subscribe" as if I was never part of this discussion thread -- so I can't "unsubscribe." I investigated my profile/account etc., and discovered that even though I logged in with the personal email address from years ago, somehow Articulate is showing my work email address for the client I've been working with the past six months and therefore it's not letting me do anything with "lingering" stuff from my personal address. It's odd, because now if I use the "Share" address for my Rise content, my full name does not appear there as the author, nor my photo ... like the two accounts have somehow become fused and confused.
That's no biggie, since I think it will self-correct and sign out/back in with my work adderss. I just want to stop getting these emails at my personal account and I can't, if you all can please assist on your side. Thanks!
P.S. Yikes, now I'm even getting an email notification that someone "new" commented on this thread ... me! :O
Hi Michael! I'm opening a case so that we can communicate offline. I have a hunch about what the problem is, so I'll shoot you an email in the case.
I'm running Storyline360 on Windows 7 Enterprise SP1.
The buttons are generally functional at first and then become unavailable. Once they're unavailable, they stay that way (on every slide) no matter if I click around to other slides or close and reopen my project.
Size doesn't affect things for me. Right now I'm encountering this with a single scene, 22-slide project.
The only thing that works for me is to undock the timeline and then redock it. Not a big deal since I figured that out, but still annoying.
So sorry that's happening, but thanks for sharing that workaround. I'll add that to our report and notify you as soon as I have more information!
I am also having this issue. I am using Windows 10. They were working fine when I was working on the project just yesterday, but now the option is greyed out. I don't believe it is size related, as I have worked on bigger files without the issue.
This work around is not working for me.
Hey Jennifer!
I'm sorry you're running into this too- thanks for letting us know. Our team is still investigating this issue, and I'd like to get a few more details from you to help track down the cause:
Keep me posted- really appreciate it!
I am having the same problem on 360 and it is eating into my development time. Please look into this problem.
Hi Angela,
Our team is still looking into this issue and hasn't found a consistent reason or way to reproduce it. Can you share a bit more about your environment and when/how you're able to see the buttons grayed out?
Also while you're working in Storyline - there are a few workarounds you could try to reactivate those buttons again:
Let us know any other insight into your set up, and we'll also keep you posted here as our team looks into this!
E-Learning Heroes, I was experiencing this issue today and found that if I click the zoom in and out buttons right next to the play/pause in the Timeline, the play/pause buttons come back to life. This may or may not work for everyone, but I thought I 'd mention it. Regards, Justin
Thanks for sharing that workaround, Justin!
The zoom in and out did not resolve the issue for me. I am using Articulate storyline 360 in a Windows10 environment. It has happened to me randomly in multiple courses and various times. Sometimes moving to another slide works, sometimes closing out the course and coming back in works, sometimes clicking on the timing ruler at the top works. But, none of these tricks work every time.
I have had this same issue using Storyline 3 on a Windows 10 computer. My theory about this problem has to do with audio. As I observed moving from slide to slide, I noticed the play and stop buttons were grayed out while the audio loaded. Once the audio had finished loading, the play and stop buttons were available again. Thus, depending on the amount of audio you have on each slide, the time it takes to go from grayed out to available differs. Give it a try and let me know if anybody gets the same results.
Hi Darin,
That's an interesting observation, I'm curious were your audio files particularly long? Do you see this only upon the first time opening the .story file or every time moving from slide to slide?
This is happening to me, and I do not have any audio on the slide in question. None of the workarounds above solved the problem for me.
Windows 10
Storyline 3
Working from local file
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for sharing that image, is this happening on each slide you're viewing? I don't see that our team has replicated this yet, but we'd like to take a look at your .story file to see if there is something else specific there.
I'm working on Windows 10 SL 360 and having the same problem: play and stop audio button on timeline graying out intermittently. I haven't detected a pattern. It is very time consuming and irritating. My project file at this point is 53MB.
Hi Linda,
Thanks for reaching out. We do still have this issue open with our team.
Are you on the latest version of Storyline 360, which is Build 3.24.17733.0?
This will repair your install as well.
Do you have two instances of the software open when this issue is happening?
I am using Windows 10. Storyline 3 - Update 5: 3.5.16548.0 My file size is 743,362KB
I have 7 scenes. three of which are only one slide at this point. I am also getting the greyed out play and stop button on the timeline viewer. I previously had Storyline 2 and it did the same thing. I had hoped that it would be fixed when I got storyline 3. I only have one instance of the software open. I also noticed that there are times when it will, out of the blue, have an error and it closes. I reopen it and have to save it again. I assumed that it was because I had not saved it more than a couple times a day.
If I open and close the file multiple times, it will finally fix itself.
Sorry you've hit this snag too, Michelle! This is still an open issue for Storyline 3 and Storyline 360, and while our team continues to investigate, luckily most folks have shared one of the following workarounds helps:
Thanks! Save, Close, Restart worked for me!
Great news, Eric :)
Thanks for chiming in to share.
I get the same issue with Storyline360. It's trial and error. Sometimes it comes back to life by moving the playhead to another position, or choosing an object, or unselecting an object or switching slides.
I'd also like to report the issue. I've got animation heavy slides, with audio. Closing and reopening the project solved the problem.
Windows 10 PC, Storyline 3
Thanks for reporting it, Merritt. Our team is still looking into this one, but I'm glad closing the project gets you back to working normally again. Can you also check that you're on the latest update of Storyline 3, build 3.6.18134.0?