Screen recording videos not playing

Hi Janine,

Just to clarify, is it screen recording videos on a single slide or inserted as a step by step? If it's the video on a single slide, it may be a codec issue but that's typically at the server level to play the videos. Are you viewing them directly from the Sharepoint site as well, or testing the published content locally? There is some description here of the codec issue you're mentioning, so it's worth checking into. You will also want to check that those users are using browsers and flash version that correspond to the system requirements detailed here.

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for your quick reply. The screen recording videos are being played on a single slide only. We are viewing them directly from the Sharepoint site rather than locally.

I will look into the links you sent me above and investigate with my IT team if such things may be affecting the outcome.

I'm still curious why previous modules have worked with screen recordings on a single slide and direct from Sharepoint, but this particular module file doesn't (which main difference is it's larger with more content, uses a different template, and has more of these recorded video slides on its pages).

Indeed I've trialled both modules with the different testers and they can open and view such videos in the first module successfully but not the other one that is causing us grief. I don't think I did anything different in the production and have compared settings on both. Which makes me curious ... but with my limited knowledge and understanding I remain perplexed but willing to learn!

Kind regards

Janine

Hi Janine,

So you're able to view it from the Sharepoint site, but a few of your colleagues/users are not? If some users can see it, but others can't - I'd definitely look further into the system requirements for viewing content as the main reason.

Other things you may want to look into to see if they're playing a role:

• Did you publish your files with different updates of Storyline?
• Has the sharepoint site been updated?
• Are the users able to test the old modules still and see them work as expected?
• Could you try sharing a link to the new content on another server, such as one of the free options mentioned in this article?

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for your suggestions. We have eliminated the system requirements as the issue (ie. staff have access to Flash Player 12 and the MIME settings on the IIS server are fine).

We have not used different updates of Storyline between the two modules created, and the Sharepoint site hasn't been updated either. The users can still view the older, smaller eLearning module and view it as expected (but not the troublesome current one).

Another IT colleague has also tried duplicating our (mine and the web developer's) SharePoint permissions for himself to see if that had any effect, but he gets the same issue. Even when he uses the SharePoint administrator account, the result is the same.

So I'm not the only one perplexed - does this indicate co-decs could be the issue? Here's a link to the .story file on Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ixpre97skd0aaxi/ComputronEssentials.story?dl=0

Kind regards

Janine

Hi Janine,

Thanks for sharing the file here. I took a look at your .story file and didn't see anything that appeared off, so I went ahead and published it for web and loaded up to my server and you can test it here. This version plays as expected for me on the screen recordings, (Video - accessing computron and Video-approving a voucher). Can you let me know if that one plays as expected for you? If not, what browser are you using to view the course?

Hi Ashley, Thanks for your external link, which works fine for several people who tested it. We are using Internet Explorer v9 or v10. It works equally well in Google Chrome v36. I did notice on my first trial (using IE 9) that if I clicked on one of the video pages before it had time to load (rather than going sequentially by clicking through the first few slides) I got a similar blank screen with no video, but if I closed the browser and re-opened the link and gave it time to load, it was OK. It was very slow to load though probably due to the file size?

So this gives me hope that it's not my file being corrupted! But where to from here in identifying why it's not playing the video content using an internal website link? Does it come back to co-decs or would that be negated by the fact that it worked ok on your external site? Could it be browser based? Could it be the file size? Could it be SharePoint permissions? (Note: we did try testing the same SharePoint permissions as I and the web content developer have who can view the internal link successfully, but couldn't get it to work for the other person who tested it with the same permissions).

I really need to resolve this if I'm to publish not only this but several other eLearning projects waiting. Any further advice would be greatly appreciated

Regards

Janine

Hi Janine,

Yup, based on this I don't believe your file is corrupt either. The slow loading could be a number of factors such as file size, browser limitations, speed of my server, your broadband speed, etc. I didn't notice any playback delays as I clicked around but I also know I have a pretty high speed internet connection too.

So, on to the next things - codecs could still be an issue if your server is not set up to allow for those specific codecs or if Sharepoint cannot accommodate them. You may want to reach out to Sharepoint directly to see if they're able to determine a codec that is unsupported - depending on their response, I have used a tool such as Handbrake previously to modify a video's codec, and make it a standard MP4 which shouldn't have any problems playing. Since this is a screen recording though, you'll need to export it out and then convert using Handbrake before reimporting to Storyline and then publish your file.

In terms of a browser, have you checked to see what browsers and flash versions Sharepoint supports? Have you tried all the same browsers you mentioned above when testing from Sharepoint?

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for your suggestions.

I thought I'd try the easiest one first - I tried exporting the screen capture videos into Handbrake and converting to a standard MP4, and reinserting - but same result - no videos visible or playing within the eLearning module.

Just wanted to check with you though - was there any specific settings in Handbrake I was supposed to use when converting the video? I just left settings at the default H264 format set for the output - is that correct?

Kind regards

Janine

Hi Janine,

I typically use the standard settings in Handbrake - so I'd want to have you check further into the Sharepoint settings. Also, just to ensure that something isn't happening when you publish (as we know your version worked when I published it) can you check that you're publishing to a local drive? Also, once you've published can you try uploading it using one of the web server options within this article and see if you're able to play that version? You can also share a link to that here with me and I can test it on a few other browsers as well.