Storyline 360 courses - audio not playing or very delayed in published output

Jan 05, 2018

Megan Creegan
By Megan Creegan

Hi, I already submitted a case for this and support and although they have been able to duplicate the issue, they haven't been able to track down a solution yet so I'm hoping someone else is having this problem too:

On random slides the audio is either delayed or not playing at all after published and uploaded to LMS. It works perfectly fine in preview or if I view the published output locally. It just doesn't work when I test in my LMS (Saba). I've also tested in SCORM Cloud and it doesn't work there either.

I've tried everything from uninstalling SL360 and reinstalling, starting a new project and importing the old, re-coverting from Storyline 2 to 360. I even tried recreating the affected slides from scratch but the audio is still messed up on those certain slides. It only happens with SL360. If I keep the project in SL2 and republish it, it works fine.

I am a Mac user and operate SL using Parallels and Windows 7. I have my shared profile disabled, I operate locally on the windows side and followed all the suggested instructions when using SL with a Mac. 

So basically, I'm stumped. Anyone out there experiencing anything similar? This issue has affected 2 separate courses that need to be updated asap so I'm sort of desperate here.

Oh, one more thing. If I add a seekbar to that slide and scrub either back or forth, it starts working immediately. And yes, I even tried adding a trigger to those slides to play audio when timeline starts. I also added the audio to a layer and triggered to play that layer when timeline starts and that doesn't work either. As you can see, I've been spending hours on this annoying issue.

74 Replies
Alyssa Gomez
over 6 years ago01/08/18 at 5:31 pm (UTC)

Sorry to hear this issue is slowing you down, Megan! Smart idea to open a support case, and I see you've been working through this with Renato. Thanks for also providing a second file that has the same issue. This does seem buggy, but we'll continue to test your files to narrow down what's causing this to happen. 

I'll follow along as your case progresses and share updates here!

Leslie McKerchie
over 6 years ago01/11/18 at 5:20 pm (UTC)

Hi Megan - I took a look at Lloyd's case referenced in that thread. Looks like our team was not able to replicate the issue and the user could not on his home network either. This indicated it could have been a network issue.

The user ended up adjusting his file as follows:

I have been testing having the videos play using triggers instead of automatically (Play Video: When Triggered > Play Media: When timeline starts) and that seems to have resolved all issues.

Nina Seiler
6 years ago01/24/18 at 8:52 pm (UTC)

For me, it only seems to affect the first slide in each section and scene slides selected from the menu. I am assuming that this is happening when the user doesn't click the NEXT button. I also noticed that programming the PREVIOUS button to go to the previous slide in sequence causes this issue. I need to be able to program the previous buttons, however, as otherwise the user may get lost in my course...

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
6 years ago03/01/18 at 7:19 pm (UTC)

Hi all,

Thanks for your patience as we worked on a fix for the issue where audio tracks that should've played at the beginning of slides didn't always work in HTML5 output. That fix is in today's update of Articulate 360!

Take a look at the release notes here, and you can install the latest update from the Articulate 360 desktop tray application by clicking Update.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
almost 6 years ago05/18/18 at 8:24 pm (UTC)

Hi David, 

Chrome has started to roll back some of their autoplay policies for audio, but this is only temporary. We're still working on our content updater to help make the transition to the latest update a bit easier for you and we'll update this article and discussions when we have more info. 

Jared Gaspard
over 5 years ago12/22/18 at 1:45 pm (UTC)

Hi,

I have started having this issue.  Like the original poster, I am using a Mac with a Windows parallel.  I also use Chrome.  

The issue is random and doesn’t not happen often when the project plays continuously.  However, if a user does not immediately proceed to the next navigation point,  the audio will not play immediately.  I have to use the seek bar to trigger the audio.

Any suggestions?

Alyssa Gomez
over 5 years ago12/26/18 at 4:26 pm (UTC)

Welcome to the community, Jared! Sorry to hear you're having audio trouble. Can you help me with a few details about your project?

  • Does this happen only after the file is published?
  • If so, is the published file hosted on a web server or a LMS? 
  • Was the file published with the most recent update of Storyline 360 (Update 23)? 
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
5 years ago02/01/19 at 8:28 pm (UTC)

Hi Music Class,

What update of Storyline 360 are you using, Storyline 360, build 3.24.17733.0 is the most recent. Also, are you also running into this issue when playing back the course in a particular browser? For example, there are some changes to how audio is handled in browsers like Chrome and Safari. 

If you're running into this in all the browsers you've tested it in, let me know. 

David Shook
5 years ago03/07/19 at 2:56 am (UTC)

Today I began experiencing a similar problem. I did a bit of testing to narrow the problem down and I have two projects, each with a single scene containing two slides.

  • In my Example 1 project, when loaded in Chrome, the audio on slide 2 does immediately play as it should. In this project, slide one is set to advance by user
  • In my Example 2 project, when loaded in Chrome, the audio on slide 2 does not immediately play as it should but if the reload button is clicked, the audio immediately begins playing when the timeline for the slide resets. When the Example 2 project is loaded in Internet Explorer, the audio for slide 2 plays as it should. In this project, slide one is set to advance automatically.
  • Other than the slide one advance setting, both projects are identical.

Both projects are attached.

Chrome Version 72.0.3626.121 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Internet Explorer 11 Version: 11.316.17763.0

David Shook
5 years ago03/08/19 at 1:15 am (UTC)

Hi Alyssa,

Thanks for looking into this. I really appreciate that you did so.

Here are the steps I took to test the link you provided along with my results:

  1. Clicked the link.
  2. The audio on slide 2 started correctly. This surprised me since it had not worked when I previously tested the project. I have been working today on this original project though, so I decided to clear my browser cache and continue the test.
  3. Cleared the cache of my Chrome browser.
  4. Clicked the link.
  5. The audio on slide 2 did not play for the entire duration of the slide.
  6. Closed the browser.
  7. Clicked the link.
  8. When prompted to Resume or Restart, clicked Restart.
  9. The audio on slide 2 started correctly.
  10. Cleared the cache of my Chrome browser.
  11. Clicked the link.
  12. The audio on slide 2 did not play.
  13. After the seekbar indicated the slide timeline was halfway complete, I clicked the restart button on the seekbar.
  14. When the frame restarted, the audio on slide 2 started correctly.

So far the only work around I have found for this is to require the student to click the next button to proceed from slide 1 to slide 2. I would prefer that when slide 1 ended, it automatically proceeded to slide 2. But the slide 2 audio does not seem to play for someone who is clicking the link for the very first time, and only plays correctly when the slide is restarted or revisited. This is of course a non-starter. Until a solution is found for this, I will update my project (and future projects) to require user advancement of slides that have audio on the following slide. I look forward to hearing that a solution to this issue has been identified though.

Thanks again,

Dave

Crystal Horn
5 years ago03/08/19 at 3:02 pm (UTC)

Hi Dave. Thanks for outlining those steps. When I first clicked Alyssa's link and let the slide advance automatically, I didn't hear the audio on slide 2. This behavior matches an issue we have documented regarding audio not playing automatically when the slide advances automatically. I suspect it has to do with the Chrome (and Safari) media autoplay policies and the fact that I hadn't yet engaged with the course at all.

Your workaround is the one I'd recommend for now, and we'll let you know in this discussion if that changes!

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