Problem with loading on iOS and Android - SL3 course.

Jan 12, 2018

Hi,

I'm working on a project in Storyline 3, and the client would like it to work on tablet devices where possible.

In our pre-release testing we have identified that the resource is very slow on iPad and even slower on Android tablets. The resource however is working great on desktops, and we've tested the resource on everything from IE9+ to modern browsers.

On Android, in our testing, the lag has made it more or less not useable unfortunately. Can anyone help identify either the limitations of Storyline 3's HTML5 output or any known issues which may cause a course to run slowly on tablets? 

One thought I had was that perhaps the course was being pre-loaded? We do have 4 embedded videos within the first 5 pages of the course which I thought may have been a factor, however I have since read that videos do not pre-load. 

Any clarity on this issue would be much appreciated.  The course is approx 80mb in total (Storyline output), has around 60 screens and most screens have several layers, 4 videos, and 22 pdfs are linked to and in the external content folder. It is a blended learning resource so we are often pointing to external pages and links.

Many thanks for any help,

Ross

8 Replies
Ross Murray

Hi, 

Just checking in on this. Is there any thoughts? Has anyone experienced a similar issue and found a solution? I was wondering if it might be to do with the responsive player? Is their a way to use the standard HTML5 player? If I understand right this can be disabled but only if you don't use any of the player features? I need to use the menu feature unfortunately. Is it possible to remove the responsive player in another way? Perhaps manually after publishing?

Thanks

Ross

Alyssa Gomez

Hi Ross,

So sorry to hear you're running into slow performance on iPad and an Android Tablet. You came to the right place for help.

First, I wanted to address your two questions:

  1. Video Preloading: HTML5 content doesn't preload videos. However, Storyline progressively streams videos so learners won't have to wait for each video to fully download before it begins to play.
  2. Responsive Player: You are correct that you can disable the responsive player by disabling all player features. However, I wouldn't expect the responsive player to cause sluggish behavior, so I'd like to have a closer look at your file.

From here, I'd like our team to test your file on our devices to see if we experience slow performance, as well. Can you help me with a few questions?

  • Where is the published content hosted--a web server or LMS?
  • What web browser and iOS version are you using on your iPad?
  • What web browser and version are you using on your Android Tablet?
  • Can you share a copy of your original Storyline 3 project file with our team by clicking here?
Ross Murray

Hi Alyssa,

Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated. Unfortunately as the project is for a client the content is not our intellectual property so at the moment I am unable to share the storyline file. However, I am going to reach out to the client to see if they would be ok with this, and will get back on this as soon as possible.

I can share that we have since tried removing the 4 videos and we did see a noticeable improvement in performance. These 4 videos are on the 4th and 5th pages of the course (after the title screen). Could it be that these are all being progressively downloaded at the same time? The videos are shown in popups (on a slide layer). The 4 videos are 46mb in size total.

  • The resource is currently being run through a web-server for testing; however the final destination is our clients scorm based LMS. We can run additional tests from an LMS and feedback on the results.
  • We are testing an iPad running iOS 11.1 and Safari
  • For Android, we have testing on an Lenovo TB3-710F running Android 5.0.1 with Google Chrome, and on an Nexus device running Android 7.

I'll let you know as soon as I hear from our client.

Thanks again,

Ross

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Deano,

I don't see any additional updates from Ross, but I'd be happy to test out your course if you can share.

Please also let me know what version of Storyline you're using and which OS/version for your Android. If you can't share a copy of the .story file here, could you let me know if you can test uploading to SCORM Cloud to see if that behaves any differently than your LMS? 

Ross Murray

Hi Deano/ Ashley,

I'm not sure if this has been improved in the latest release of Storyline 3, but our solution was to host the videos externally (on YouTube) and use the Video Embed code function, that sorted the problem for us. If that's an option for you I'd recommend that! There does seem to be some sort of preloading going on in the background which is causing older Android devices to slow down.

Hope this helps,

Ross

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