Preview Crashing

Mar 03, 2018

I'm new to Storyline, but have now installed and reinstalled 3 times and I cannot preview without the program crashing (see screenshot).

I'm running on a Surface Pro 4....any suggestions?

 

 

24 Replies
Leslie McKerchie

Hi Cayman and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

Sorry that you're running into an issue when previewing your course.

Curious if this happens with any course or just this particular one?

It looks like you've reached out to our support team as well and it may be beneficial to take a look at your .story file, so I will send you a reply there for you to get that uploaded for our team.

Cayman Persichini

Thanks for responding!

So far this has happened to every course I've tried to publish or preview. I'm thinking it's more of a operating system issue rather than the trial version of what I have.

Just sent a file over so hopefully someone can provide some more insight.

Thanks again for the help!

 

Caryn De Buck

We are experiencing the same issue where the software crashes when we try to play the timeline on a specific slide, but it doesn't happen for everyone, only one user which makes me think it's a software or operating system issue versus a file issue (file works fine on my machine). She has run the most recent update and still has the same problem so I'm at a lose as to what to try next to solve her issue. 

Cynthia Manika

I am having this issue - when I "play the timeline" in the working environment, not preview or after you publish - I have saved as a new name - I have imported this project over several dozen times already into a new project. I have uninstalled the apps, used your clean utility and reinstalled. I now save EACH time I do anything. This is insanity - I already have a case due to all the other problems and crashes - this is a new one to add to the lot. I have each scenario in its own file for now just to get through development and review. Plus when I change from expanded font, which seems to be part of the other issue - it removes all my animation timing by paragraph and formatting. I am not sure what is happening with your software but the "gremlins" I have experienced over the many years have grown to full blown adult trolls and wreaking havoc for me and my students.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Cynthia,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing what you are experiencing. 

This is an issue that has been reported to our team. I've added this conversation so that we can share updates with you here.

In the meantime, if you select Cancel on the pop-up, you can continue working without the program closing.

Leslie McKerchie

Hello ACT Gov,

It sounds like you may be experiencing a different issue if you are unable to preview certain slides, but not others. Is the software closing?

I want to take a look at your project file to investigate what's happening with your permission. You can share it publicly here or send it to me privately by uploading it here. I'll delete it when I'm done troubleshooting.

Evan Bahoric

I've been having the same problem for weeks. It all started with the last update. I've been saving prior to smashing that preview button each time. Doesn't matter what project I'm working in, I'd say there is a 75% chance Storyline will close with no warning when I click preview (doesn't matter if it's preview slide, scene, entire project, or selected slides).

Barry Hollembeak

I am experiencing some of the same issues. One problem is when I select a series of slides and then click "Preview selected slides." A popup appears wanting me to describe what I was doing. I am able to click "Cancel" and get back to the slides, so it is not totally crashing the program. But after the first attempt any other other attempts to do a preview, regardless of the selection, does not do anything.

After rebooting the program and opening the story file, I have noticed that if I select one slid to preview and click "Preview Slide," nothing happens. But if I select the slide and click on "Preview selected slides" then the preview works.

These issues have come up in every course I have revisited (well over a hundred). We are in the process of refreshing the courses and the lose of this functionality is time consuming.

Andrea Koehntop

Hi Barry! I apologize for the issues you are experiencing trying to preview your courses.

Since this issue is occurring in multiple courses, I would like to ask some questions to begin troubleshooting:

If those measures do not help, would you be willing to share an example of a course you're having this issue with: either publicly here or privately in a case? We will delete it from our records once troubleshooting is complete.

Maria Costa-Stienstra

Hi, Barry. 

Thank you for sharing the .story file!

I tried to reproduce the issue in several different ways:

  • Selecting one slide and choosing Preview Selected Slides.
  • Selecting multiple slides and choosing Preview Selected Slides.
  • Clicking Preview this Scene.
  • Clicking Preview entire project.

All those options worked as expected. Since you've already repaired Storyline 360 without success, take a look at the steps in the article below. If you continue to have this issue, please reach out to our support engineers through a case so we can investigate what's happening:

Jean-Christophe Goyette

I just encountered crashing issues when previewing and even publishing. I had the usual prompt to send a report, but I also received a prompt about "lack of available memory; please close applications". 

It occured with the following versions:

  • 3.62.27443.0 (March 30th)
  • 3.63.27674.0 (May 3rd)

However, it did NOT crash with other courses, some being heavier and beefier in size. The courses I tested and was working on had SVG files, which is something that was recently added, if I'm correct. I even encountered a crash on 3.62.27443.0 (March 30th) with a specific SVG image.

I revert back to version 3.61.27106.0 (February 15th) and it stopped crashing altogether.

Andrea Koehntop

Hi Jean-Christophe! I apologize for the issues you are experiencing trying to preview and publish your course. 

The error you are receiving is not one specific to Storyline, but when there are too many processes running on your computer, or your programs are using too much memory.

I found an article, outside of our Articulate documentation, about this error and how to fix it on your computer. Let me know if you try the troubleshooting steps, and if they allow you to preview and publish your course! 

Jean-Christophe Goyette
Andrea Koehntop

The error you are receiving is not one specific to Storyline, but when there are too many processes running on your computer, or your programs are using too much memory.

Then how come it crashed with 2 recent versions, but not 1 older version? I didn't change my setup at all, and all of the sudden, Storyline crashed on me with its own prompt to send a report, followed by the lack of memory.

I've been using the same exact setup with my computer, including whatever applications and active processes, and this is the first time it crashed like that.