Player Template Corrupt

Sep 10, 2013

Recently, I've been having issues with courses that are unable to preview or publish. I googled the issue (which always leads me back to the forums), and found this solution:

http://community.articulate.com/forums/t/29640.aspx

I tried copying and pasting all of my slides into a fresh file, then creating a new player template. That totally fixed the problem.

Here's the thing. I've just had another player template become corrupt. If I try to switch to another player template, I click on the player button and the the following message:

"It is strongly recommended that you close any unneeded applications and save your project."

I click OK, but all this does is close the pop up. I cannot go in and switch to a different player. That means that every single course I have that uses this player template has to be copied and pasted into a new file, I have to create a new player template, and I have to apply that player template to each course individually.

So here are my questions. 1) Does anyone know *why* the player template becomes corrupt? 2) Is there any easier way to fix my courses than doing all of the steps above? It's a really annoying and time consuming solution, especially when I have a deadline looming over my head tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks in advance for your help!

5 Replies

Daniel Brigham
Hero

over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 1:14 pm (UTC)

Hi, Sarah:

From my experience, it's not uncommon for a template to become corrupt (dirty little thing that it is), but it's uncommon for the fresh file you just created to become corrupt. I agree--that's troubling.

If this were happening to me, I'd delete everything Articulate off my computer, send up a quick prayer to the Elearning Gods, and do a re-install. Will take about 15 minutes or so.

Sarah Newman
Author

over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 1:20 pm (UTC)

Wait, the new template corrupted after a few weeks, not immediately. Does that make a difference? I just want to know *why* it became corrupt to begin with. Surely there's a reason, right?

Daniel Brigham
Hero

over 10 years ago09/10/13 at 1:26 pm (UTC)

There is of course is a reason, but I'm not sure we'll ever find out. Part of the mystery of elearning. If something funky starts happening, I just dump the template and move on. It happens.

Of course, it might also be the Windows installation, but I wouldn't worry about that till later.

Leslie McKerchie
Staff

over 10 years ago09/11/13 at 5:37 am (UTC)

Hi Sarah! Unfortunately Daniel is probably right about not knowing for sure, but if you have continual difficulty, please let us know.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
Staff

over 10 years ago09/11/13 at 9:50 am (UTC)

Hi Sarah,

As Leslie mentioned, there is no way to know for sure - but when a file becomes corrupt (either a .story file or a templater) there are some standard things you'll want to confirm. First, please make sure that you're working with local project files (including your images):

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 (this includes spaces and underscores).

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

If, as Daniel mentioned you'd like to conduct a repair of your Storyline software these directions will walk you through how to do that. You may also want to repair the surrounding Windows software too. If you continue to have trouble, please let us know and you can either share that here in the forums or by connecting with our Support team.

Player Template Corrupt

5 Replies

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