Resources do not refresh

Aug 31, 2012

Mary Skipp
By Mary Skipp

I've recently had some problems with resources (files).  In one case I published my project and one of the resources had been moved so when I went to test the published version I got a file not found error.  That works as expected, however, I put the file in the correct directory and no matter how many times I republished, I could not get rid of the file not found message. I tried removing and readding  the resource, removing it and renaming it and readding it, resaving the project, etc.  I finally got it to work, but I'm not sure what did it.

Then in a similar situation, I had to update one of the resource files.  It kept the same name, but the content was updated.  Upon republishing the old content is still there.  I got around this by changing the directory name (where I was keeping all the resources for this project), and going to the player and changing the location of each resource.  A lot of work.

It seems that these are both related to being able to get storyline to refresh or reload the resources at publish time.  Is there a way to force that?

Thank you,

Mary

36 Replies
Phil Mayor
almost 6 years ago07/04/18 at 12:02 pm (UTC)

I meant unzip the storyline file not the published files, the storyline file is just a zip file.

There is a dirty fix, edit the web object link, point to a url and then back to your folder and it will refresh the files in the storyline file.

This may be by design because it is the same way resources work. where they get stored in the storyline file.

It has bit me quite a few times, and I would hope that a solution will be found, may just be a simple publish option to refresh web objects, or a web object import option where you can choose to always refresh specific web objects each time you open the file.

Albert Vis
almost 6 years ago07/04/18 at 12:32 pm (UTC)

Understood that, Just like reediting the link. This all is indeed dirty fixing and not a workable solution. People can agree or disagree on that. :)

Do you know where the files are locally stored in the file or system?

It is times like these that I miss the working way of flash (no matter what you think of it).

Thanks for the support and feedback, much appreciated.

Hope like you that a solution will be presented.

Ryan Aller
over 5 years ago09/26/18 at 1:05 pm (UTC)

I'm noticing that this is still, in fact, a "feature" that exists today. From what I am seeing it appears that any resources are being stored within the .story file and not linking to them directly where the resources live (as one would believe). This is unfortunate. My quick fix is to simply replace the "old" pdf documents in the packaged file with the newly updated pdf resources.

Again, this is not ideal, and for sustainment of these courses, the next developer is going to have to know to do this. Otherwise the next time it is published the old PDF resources will return. I have gone back and relinked everything (I hope) but what if I missed one? In my opinion, this should be a feature enhancement that would simply make resources link to the original directory where they live (are linked from) rather than embedding it in the .story file.

Jerry Beaucaire
almost 5 years ago06/26/19 at 5:15 pm (UTC)

This is a constant irritation.   The point of external resources is "content outside this course".  Even if we link to it via URL or local hard drive, external sources are more often dynamic than not.

Please enhance this.   The simplest path to this in my opinion would be to add a checkbox to let the user indicate if this file should be static (linked once and then never change) or dynamic (refreshes each time course is published).

Refresh Attached Resources

Jerry Beaucaire
almost 5 years ago06/27/19 at 3:12 pm (UTC)

Gerry, are you talking about URL links?   What you've noted is the opposite of the problem I"m describing.  When I link a FILE from my computer as a resource, as soon as I link it, Storyline imports it permanently into the .story hidden away somewhere.  So it's there forever unless manually deleted.

My problem is that the external resource I link to is sometimes a dynamic file, and I'm saying we need at least the OPTION for those external files to be "refreshed" automatically when we republish the course.

Gerry Wasiluk
almost 5 years ago06/27/19 at 3:42 pm (UTC)

Actually, my initial comment was wrong as I just tested it.  There was a time that when linking to a file resource that SL did not import it into the .story file.  It was like a relative reference was saved and the file got "imported in" at publishing.

Missed that this has been "fixed."  Bravo, Articulate! :)

Had to update a couple of real old SL courses last year with file links and we had to search out the original developer to get the linked files as no one else had them from the client.

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