Storyline 360 Crashes Immediately When Publishing to Video

Jun 05, 2023

Help! 

I am attempting to export/publish a Storyline 360 file as a video. It's relatively straightforward (20 slides, auto-advancing at the end of the timeline on each slide), and it previews with no issues, but when I try to publish, the app crashes immediately. No error message, nothing. 

Based on some research, I've tried a few troubleshooting steps on my own:

  • Trying to publish without changing any of the publish/export settings
  • Restarting the computer
  • Creating a new Storyline file and copying the slides over
  • Reinstalling/Repairing Storyline 360
  • Reinstalling Windows, installing fresh copies of Articulate 360 and Storyline 360
  • Attempting to publish just one slide as a video 
  • Copying the elements of just one slide to a new Storyline file and trying to publish that as a video

Sadly, nothing has worked. I think the problem is not with my file but with Storyline: I created a blank presentation with a single slide, added a shape to the slide with entrance and exit animations, and attempted to publish as a video... CRASH!

Any ideas?

I'm running Articulate 360 version 1.76.30446.0, Storyline 360 v3.76.30446.0, and Windows 11 Home version 21H2 (22000.2003). 

18 Replies
Jose Tansengco

Hi Sean, 

Thanks for sharing a copy of your project file. I can confirm that I was able to publish your project file as a video without any issues on my end. I've attached a copy of the published output for your reference.

Since the behavior appears to be isolated to your installation, please try doing the steps listed in this article to resolve it: 

You'll also want to make sure that your computer meets the system requirements listed in this article

If the issue persists, open a case with our support team here for further assistance. 

Steven Benassi

Hi Jennie!

Sorry to hear you are also encountering this snag! I'd be happy to work with you to see what could be causing this!

I just had some follow-up questions to help me understand what you are experiencing a little better:

  • Are you receiving an error message when Storyline crashes during an attempt to publish? If so could, you relay what the error message says?
  • Does the issue still persist currently? Yesterday we were experiencing an outage that partially affected courses that were being published to Review 360 which has since been resolved.
  • Are you experiencing this behavior across all of your courses or is it isolated to one specifically?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Douglas Bushong

If it's helpful, I'm experiencing the exact same problem this morning that Jennie Crowther and Sean Hickey are describing.  I've created a course with 6 slides, and when I attempt to publish the course to video, Articulate Storyline crashes.

By "crashes," I mean it completely shuts down with no error message.  I've opened the Windows Task Manager to see what's happening when I attempt to publish.  From the looks of it, the Articulate application just disappears from the Task Manager on the crash.

It looks exactly like it would look if I closed the application, EXCEPT it doesn't ask me if I want to save before closing the program.  I tested it just now by adding a shape to a slide and attempting to publish without saving first; after the crash, I re-open the project, and the shape I added is not there.

Here is a short video showing what I'm seeing on my screen.  I've redacted the folder paths, but it's a local folder on my machine that I'm attempting to save the file to.

EDIT: It appears another question was submitted to the community on the same day for the same issue:

https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/storyline-crashes-when-publishing-to-video

This appears to be a very recent issue.  Is it possible that this problem began with a recent update?  The version I'm running when getting this crash issue is version 3.76.30446.0.

 

Angie Elliott

I'm having this same issue. I'm a seasoned designer in Articulate and have had projects much bigger than the one I'm trying to publish. I've tried to close all my apps and end any non-essential tasks prior to publishing as a video. I've tried saving straight to my C: Drive in the Documents > My Articulate Projects folder. Same as the others, Articulate 360 crashes with no system error message.

I have two company-supplied laptops and have the same result on both.

  • One is an HP Elitebook Pro 850 G6 with 16 GB of RAM and with an Intel Core i7-8665U CPU @ 1.90GHz processor on which video rendering was never an issue,
  • The other one is a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad L15 Gen 2 with an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U processor with 32 GB of RAM. 
Jose Tansengco

Hello Angie, 

Sorry to hear that you ran into this snag. It looks like you've already tried a few troubleshooting steps and the issue still happens. 

Would you be willing to share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at what's happening with your project file? We'll delete it when we're done testing!

Douglas Bushong

Following up for those in the community who may read this in the future.

When I posted 7 days ago, I consistently got this crash when exporting to video. I continued to get the crash when exporting to video right up to earlier this morning. I was still running Version 3.77.30446.0, which was the same version Sean HIckey posted above.

I noticed this morning that an update was released today (06/22/2023). I ran the update, and I am now running 3.77.30587.0. I attempted to export to video this morning with no other changes to the file, and it exported fine. No more crashing.

I checked the version history this morning right after the update.

https://articulate.com/support/article/Articulate-Storyline-360-Version-History

Build 3.77.30587.0 was published this morning and - as of now - it only has one line item:

Fixed: Storyline 360 could crash unexpectedly

:-D

Angie, Jennie and Sean (and anyone else running into this problem), if you're running version 3.77.30446.0, consider doing an upgrade; it may fix your problem.

 

 

Jose Tansengco

Hi Jennie,

Here's a helpful video which explains how you can enable Closed Captioning in your course by default. This article explains what the variable used in the video does in more detail for your reference: 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Peter Hamm

I have a 17 slide SL file with text-to-speech that I'm trying to publish as a video. I have moved the file to my local (non-shared drive) and tried to publish to the same drive. It goes through encoding all 17 slides then when it gets to "Adding audio track..." I get the Send Error Report window. I've tried removing all the TTS files, uninstalling/reinstalling SL and it still crashes at "Adding audio track..." (even if there is no audio). Before I added animations and TTS, I could publish the entire project to video. Since adding them, I can't. As I send I even tried removing all the TTS, didn't solve anything. I've put in a support ticket, but have not heard back. Hoping someone in "the community" can help. BTW I'm using the latest SL. Thanks.

Kelly Auner

Hi, Peter!

Thanks for reaching out and I'm sorry you're experiencing this issue!

It looks like my teammate, Ian, sent you a reply yesterday afternoon. Ian was able to download your published file without any issues, so it's possible the problem may be environment-related. Here are a few things to try:

  • Publish to another folder on your local computer, isn't synched to a cloud service like OneDrive, and isn't located too deep in your directory that the path becomes too long
  • Ensure that the file is located in the above-described environment too, that is, found locally, before publishing
  • Try a Storyline repair

From here, we can continue the conversation in your support case. If you did receive Ian's email, please let me know and we'll resend that to you!

Luciana Piazza

Hello Sachin, 

Thanks for reaching out in this thread! Sorry to hear you've run into this snag. 

I have a few quick questions to better understand what you've tried so far:

  • Have you tried publishing to another folder on your local computer? If so, are you receiving the same message? 
  • Have you tried a repair of Storyline?

We'd be happy to take a closer look at your file in this thread or privately in a support case. That way we can investigate further. 

Looking forward to hearing from you! ✨

Danielle Dupuis

Good afternoon!  I am having this issue with Storyline v3.81.31200.0.  I moved the file to my local drive and tried to publish but it keeps crashing.  I do not have admin rights and would need to reach out to IT to reinstall (if I needed to) for Windows 10.  I am getting the 'Complete' message after publishing, but THEN it crashes and closes Storyline.  I see nothing in Review 360. I tried again removing all Test to Speech, get the 'Complete' pop-up, but then crashes. I tried Publishing to my local drive, but it puts it in this ZIP file.  I am newbie, just trying to get others to test out my first project in Storyline.  Do I first reach back out to IT to reinstall? Or are there any other steps that I can perform before having them go through that process?

Steven Benassi

Hi Danielle!

It sounds like you've also hit a snag when publishing your Storyline course. Sorry to hear that but I'd be happy to share some troubleshooting steps you may find helpful!

Hope this helps! Looking forward to hearing from you!