Storyline 360 courses - audio not playing or very delayed in published output
Jan 05, 2018
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
Hi Dave,
If you're seeing it for audio on the first slide of your project, that should be fixed if you're using the latest update of Storyline 3 (build 3.6.18134.0) or Storyline 360,(build 3.25.18088.0). Do you know what version of Storyline you're using? You can check by going to the "Help" Tab -> "About Articulate Storyline".
Using a different version would also explain why Alyssa's published output worked and played back the audio.
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Curiously, I have a project that consists of multiple scenes, each of which includes a View Mode simulation. The slides in each simulation auto advance. I added audio to key spots in each simulation by adding a frame with the audio as its only content. I set the properties of these frames to not hide the other slide layers and to pause the base layer. I added a trigger to the base layer to show the audio layer when the base layer started. I added a trigger to the audio layer to hide the audio layer when it ended (see attached image). The audio immediately plays when these slides play. One thing that is a bit different is that the auto advance trigger is Player trigger instead of a Slide trigger. I couldn't find a way to manually add a Player "Jump to next slide When the timeline ends" trigger though. And when I copied that trigger to other non-simulation recorded slides, the audio did not immediately play on the slide that was advanced to automatically due to the copied Player trigger.
There is still a delay between the time the initial slide appears and audio starts with my project and I am on build 3.25.18088.0.
Hi David,
Our team is still working on an issue where audio is not automatically playing when the slide is set to advance automatically or using a jump to slide trigger when the timeline ends in Chrome v72 and Safari v12. I'd love to take a look at your file to help figure out any other workarounds to get you up and running - are you able to share that with us here?
Also, I wanted to let you know Storyline 360, build 3.26.18364.0 was released yesterday. So in case you wanted to install the latest update, that's now available in the 360 Desktop app.
Here is the project file. The audio on the first slide plays after a slight delay once the slide appears. Here is the published project:
http://alpscycler.com/cloudformation
As I mentioned previously, it is curious that there is no delay in the audio that I inserted on separate frames in the simulations that exist in each of the scenes.
Hi David. I tested your output with a few other folks on my team, and we didn't hear any delay in audio on the first slide of your project in Chrome v.73. I also heard audio on the screen recording slides that included it in Task 1.
Could you let me know what browser you're using? If you could do a Peek recording of the delay you're seeing as well, that will give me some guidance on what you're experiencing. Thanks for working with us, David!
Hi Crystal. I will get this done on Monday. I look forward to checking out the Peek tool and compare it to other similar tools. In particular, I am interested in seeing its editing capabilities to the recording, e.g., trim, cut, and insert functions. Thanks, Dave
Here is the Peek recording. The audio quality is pretty poor and very loud but it illustrates the issue. Here are the steps I followed in the recording in case it isn't obvious.
1. Opened the published project in Chrome Version 73.0.3683.86 (Official Build) (64-bit)
2. After a significant delay, the audio on slide 1 plays.
3. Closed Chrome.
4. Open the published project again in Chrome and clicked Restart.
5. Once again, there was a significant delay before the audio on slide 1 plays.
6. After advancing to slide 2, clicked the back button to return to slide 1.
7. The audio immediately plays.
https://360.articulate.com/review/content/369b1511-b759-489d-adfd-39fe371b3d08/review
Happy Monday, David!
Appreciate the handy Peek recording, and sorry you're running into that delay! I tested your published 3.25.18088.0 output on Chrome v.73 where I'm also unable to reproduce any issues with the audio as heard in your Peek.
Out of curiosity, do you hear any issues with the audio in this Build 3.26.18364.0's published output?
In the meantime, I've opened a case with our Support Engineers. This is an excellent opportunity for them to lend a hand; look out for an email with some new approaches to try, and I'll follow along. We'll figure this out together!
Hi Katie,
The same delay occurs with the build you provided the link to. I wonder if there is a Chrome setting that is causing this delay. I recall reading that how Chrome treats the autoplay function is connected to the audio delay seen on slides that are auto advanced to.
Thanks for having a listen, David! I'll share this insight in your case.
I see my teammate, Chino, is working on your case as we speak so look out for a follow-up email from him soon. I'll follow along, as I'm curious to know what's causing this delay!
Hi everybody, we're experiencing the same problem: when the course is published the audio doesn't play at all or it is delayed. If the slide contains several audio tracks sometimes the first is delayed and overlaps with the second one: a real mess! I add that we use only the html5 publishing (no Flash).
I can't conceal this is a huge problem and it's really disappointing. Please, we kindly ask you to fix it as soon as possible.
Hi Massimo,
Our team has seen a few different causes or setups that prevent the audio from playing back, and we're continuing to investigate. It would help to take a look at your files so that we can properly test and confirm the issue you're running into. Can you share a copy of your .story file with our Support Team?
Hi, I am also having an issue where audio sometimes drops out on slides after the course is published and upload to the LMS. The same slide runs fine when I preview it in Storyline.
Hi, Anne!
Sorry to hear you're experiencing audio issues. Let's see if we can spot a trend:
If you're able to share your LMS package with us for testing, that would be super! You can send it privately to us by using this link. We'll give it a test in another LMS environment, and will delete it after troubleshooting.
I am experiencing this problem too.
I'm working on a simulation that has an alarm tone. As the user navigates the environment and interacts with panels, the tone plays (until the user manually silences them). Since the same tone is throughout the entire lesson, I put the audio file on the Master Slide's 'parent'. This way it can be triggered where ever I need it, and only have to maintain one instance of the audio file.
(the lesson contains proprietary content, so I can't share it)
Odd playback from the published version. Audio drops out after certain pages are visited. Audio is not playing, even though the variable that triggers it is clearly 'true'.
We experienced this in IE and Chrome from our server, then I tried the local copy published on my hard drive. It worked fine. No playback issue. From this, I gather it is potentially a network lag issue.
The audio is a primary function in this lesson. The training is useless to the student if they can't actually hear it.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for that detailed description. When you're testing out the published content, is the server a shared file storage/drive or a web server where it's hosted? I'd always recommend first publishing locally, and then moving to the shared server or uploading to a web server. Working off a network or shared drive is known to cause issues with how content behaves, and uploading to the intended publish environment will also be crucial for success.
If you need to host within your server, another option is to look at publishing for CD/local source as that may playback better than items published for Web/LMS.
Let us know if any of that helps!
Hello - I am having a similar problem, but my audio will drop in the middle of a slide (file). It works in preview, but not in our LMS or Scorm Cloud. Help?
Hi, Jillian. Happy to investigate this audio issue!
First, smart call to test the course in SCORM Cloud. A few questions to help us look at our next steps:
Thank you, Katie - I will send the file over right away.
Storyline version: 3.35.21017.0
Viewing in Chrome
Good morning, Jillian!
I appreciate you sharing the file for testing. I'll let you know what I find within the support case shortly!
Thank you, Katie. A current working theory has to do with the compression rate of the audio.
Was there any resolution to this issue? I'm still experiencing it today.
Hi Stephanie,
So sorry to hear you're facing issues with the audio! Referencing the recent cases in this discussion, we're having trouble recreating the experience.
Is this happening on a certain browser? Also, would you be willing to connect with our Support Engineers through this link so we can best determine what may be happening?