Storyline 3 Error: Available Memory is Low

Hi all,

Great news -  Update 3 of Storyline 3 is available!

We released a fix for the issue where preview files are not being placed in the temporary storage folder.

You can view the Version history here and you'll also be able to download Update 3 here! 

Sergio - I am running into memory limits too so am considering implementing the  IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE hack as you did but I understand not all programs are compatible with the setting and I am already having stability problems.... Is it stable for you? Did you just add the /3GB setting in the Boot.ini then "editbin.exe /LARGEADDRESSAWARE Storyline.exe"?

Thanks,

Hi Steve, 

I'm sorry you're struggling with this, as I saw you also reached out here. If you haven't yet connected with our Support Engineers, please do so as they'll want to take a look at your set up and offer advice based on that! Also, we're gathering more information about this issue so that we can work towards a permanent solution. 

Hi everyone!
I ran into this "Low memory error" when I had SL3 and now with SL 360. Even after increasing my Virtual Memory. 

I found that by saving my project as a .STORYTEMPLATE and then re-opening the project, then saving it again, I was able to save it successfully and avoid getting the error again. 

I hope this helps some of you getting the error, I know how frustrating it can be! I'm the only one on a team of 5 with SL 360 who this happens to and it sucks!

Jennifer, one thing I've found that has helped this issue tremendously is to not leave your file open for long periods of time and of course, save frequently. I was leaving my file running and letting my computer sleep overnight, but never shutting anything down. Save your file for the day and completely close out of Storyline. Also, don't open two SL files at the same time until this issue is ironed out.

Hi Jennifer,

I'm sorry you've run into this too. Our team is continuing to investigate and would love to talk one on one with any others who have experienced these performance and memory issues. Especially since you're the only one out of a team of 5 running into it, it may be an easy way for us to look at what you're doing differently than your teammates.

If you'd like to reach out to our Support Engineers to get started or share more info with them, you can connect with them here. 

Also, thanks Kimberly for those tips - especially shutting down Storyline each night! That's definitely one that I've seen contribute to this behavior as well. 

I am also having problems with Storyline 360 running really slowly. It has been getting worse lately & is now becoming unusable. I have tried all the fixes listed above but with no improvement. My only solution is to revert to Storyline 2!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi Bruce, 

I'm really sorry that you're having such trouble. I don't see if you started a Support case with our team yet, but I'd love to get one started for you. This issue is one that we're still investigating and the team can work with you to gather more info to help with that investigation. 

Keep your eyes out for an email from them to get started and I assure you, fixing these memory and performance issues is the highest priority for us.

Having the same issue. Just got a new Engineering 2.70 GHz 64-bit processor to help with the issue because I was getting the same Low Memory, Cannot Save Project, and Close all non-essential programs and unable to save anything. Have 31.8 GB usable installed memory (RAM), but still got the same error messages on Friday night and was unable to save again. This is so frustrating. Submitted a Case and deleted the Local App Files as suggested above, not sure what else to do.

Hi Ellie,

I see you've also been working with my colleague Miker on this, and he was helping you pull some system logs. 

Please let him know if you run into any issues with this and if you need anything else! 

Having the same issue. Any updates?

Hi Matt!

We actually just released Articulate Storyline 360 Update 14. The issue mentioned here is one we fixed. 

Fixed: Storyline could become sluggish or display a low memory error, especially after several hours of use.

We found a memory leak and fixed the problem. We're so sorry for the frustration it caused. And thank you to everyone who reported it! 

You can find a list of all the new features and bug fixes that we've added to Storyline 360 here.

Here's how to install updates for your Articulate 360 apps.

This should be in our next update to Storyline 3.

I also have problem with memory, but my file is only 92 KB. It has only 304 orange rectangles, nothing more. When I open it, Storyline 3 uses about 217 MB memory. But in every click on any rectangle increasing this value by about 10 MB. You can click on any rectangle or the same all the time, every click it's 10 MB more in memory. When it reaches 3 GB, the message about memory appears and Storyline 3 crashes. I have the latest update 3.3.15007.0

Hi Radosław, 

Thanks for sharing that file here with us. I was able to see the very slow performance and increase in memory usage, but I couldn't get Storyline to crash after clicking around a lot and even moving items within the setup. 

I'll share a screen recording of this with my team and a copy of this file as we continue to dig into the performance issues. 

Hi all,

We released a new update for Storyline 3 today, Update 4 is available for download here. One of the items you'll note fixed was how Storyline could become sluggish or display a low memory error, especially after several hours of use. We found a memory leak and fixed the problem. We're sorry for the frustration it caused. 

Please let us know if you run into that error message again in Storyline 3 or Storyline 360.

Our team is continuing to keep an eye on other performance issues with both of those Storyline versions, so we'll keep you posted on that too! 

I am experiencing the low memory error message as well when I try to publish a course to Articulate 360. This is a new computer, and I checked the app data and it looks clear. Not sure why I keep receiving these error messages every time I publish. Any help would be appreciated!  

Thanks for sharing your experience, Katy. Really sorry you're also seeing that low memory notice when publishing to Review.

I'm curious if you run into the same message if you try a different publish option? Can I also confirm if you tried clearing your temp folder to see if that helps? Here's how:

1. Simply open Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address field, and press Enter. 
2. When your temp directory opens, press Ctrl+A to select all the temp files, then press the Delete key on your keyboard.
3. A few temp files may currently be in use that can't be deleted. When prompted, you can skip those.
4. Try to publish your project file again.

pro-tip: we recommend working from a local hard drive, since network or flash drives are known to cause odd behavior. 

Let me know – I'll be standing by!

Thank you for your response, Katie! I found the Temp folder and deleted all the files that weren't in use, per your suggestion. I still had the error message appear when attempting to publish, but I realized that my documents were syncing to a cloud-based account. I saved the course to my hard drive, and it seems to be working at this time. I am grateful for your help!

I like others are having problems with Storyline 3 and its driving me mad. Have masses of space but I am getting to the place where I can not reliably work on a project. The %appdata% option did not make a huge amount of difference.

Hi Julia, 

I'm sorry those steps didn't work for you - but our Support Team is happy to work with you one on one to find steps that will work! You can reach out to them directly and they'll walk you through some additional troubleshooting. 

still same issues. Very frustrating. 

Oh no, Nicole.

I took a look and I see that you are on an Articulate 360 Teams Subscription, so I assume you're running into issues with Storyline 360.

I see that Crystal shared some tips with you here, so be sure to reach out to one of our support engineers here to get priority support so we can help get you back in good working order if needed.

Hello everyone, I have a very large and VERY time sensitive Storyline 360 course that I am having trouble saving. Over and over again, I am getting a "System running low on memory" error and I cannot save the file. I have removed everything I possibly can from my Desktop, as well as our Network drive and cannot save this file anywhere. Through looking at past entries on the blog, I ran across this one - https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/storyline-3-error-available-memory-is-low. It states in there to remove all of your files from %appdata%\Articulate\Storyline or C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Articulate\360. I worked with my company's IT support and we didn't find either of those pathways but we did find this one:
C:\Users\MyNetworkName\AppData\Local\Articulate\360\ApiCache\v1\ that has about 2,200 files in it. BEFORE I delete anything, I want assurance that deleting all of the folders and files in that pathway will resolve my low memory issue and that I will not be deleting anything that I need. Please advise ASAP as I said, this is a very time sensitive project.

I don’t think you can get assurances that it will fix your memory issues.

For me memory issue is more related to the size of the project, as well as the number of large assets in the project.

Sent from my iPhone