Storyline 360 Slow with Parallels on Mac

Hey, Joe, I can confirm that I have been experiencing the same issue in the last few weeks. It's almost like using a 10 year old computer. I click on an object in it takes 2 seconds before it registers. I also checked on my wife's computer running parallels and it's the same. Something is wrong.

Also, it feels that it is even worse, if I go and work in a layer. Supermega slow.

Trying to pinpoint the problem, it seems that Storyline slows when you have a high res picture on the slide. If I hide the picture, it's snappy again. This worked much better a few versions ago.

Hi Nejc,

Have been suffering the same issue since installing Storyline 3 this morning

Your solution looks to work, hiding the background or any hi-res images speeds up the page re-load.

Ive also noticed when dragging to select the cursor appears somewhere else and affects other content, meaning you have to attempt this several times

I didn't see this problem in Storyline 2 

Macbook Pro 2017

OS - HIgh sierra 10.13.1

Parrallels

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I actually ditched Parallels several days ago and drug out an ancient Windows 7 laptop. It actually works faster. I may end up just buying a newer Windows laptop solely for Storyline since I can't get it to work fast enough on my Mac.

Thank you for the info, Las.

Joe, I have been using Storyline for 3 years in Paralles, but it seems that there is something wrong with the last few versions, so I hope they will be out with a fix.

I will do a test with the same slide in SL2 vs SL360 and see. Will record and report.

So I have just done a comparison and doesn't really make sense.

SL2  - no issues, responds as expected, no delays or hesitancy

SL360 - Same again, feels slick, no delays hesitancy (this was a trial - fully uninstalled before full version sl3 installed)

SL3 - mouse becomes unresponsive, drop down panels slow to appear, selecting items on screen hit and miss, mouse responses very hesitant, delays in moving content around screen, undoes do not seem to work. Followed guidance and applied settings, no difference  - in fact increased graphics (2gb) memory and ram (8gb)

I now don't have the luxury of stepping back to SL2 as I have a project In process and requires SL3 to complete.

on top of that;

Made sure windows 10 up to date
Applied the latest Parallels update

Now, think ill sleep on it

Thanks for the feedback and testing everyone. I haven't experienced any slowness myself, but I encourage you to share any consistent and reproducible behaviors with our team here.

Are you using coherence mode?

Add my name to the list of people experiencing extremely slow lag times when using Storyline 360 on Mac via Parallels.  It definitely seems to be an issue caused by high-res jpg graphics.  Whenever I'm using PNG's it seems to work much better.

Hi Marty,

If you are able to share a consistent and reproducible example, that would be very helpful. You can share directly with our team here.

No Phil all turned off as per the current recommendations (coherence, folders sharing etc) , didn't make any difference.

Did have a strange one today, the cursor was In constant busy state couldn't do anything for about 30 or so seconds, after opening a blank space/ scene, didn't actually do anything.

I keep folder sharing on, but have had huge issues with Coherence.

Done.  I've narrowed this issue down to occurring when you change the brightness/contrast settings on an image.

Leslie, I sent the file over.  The issue clearly has to do with images that have edits made to brightness/contrast etc...  If I resent the image settings everything is responsive again.

Thanks so much Marty :) Pinpointing that down will be super helpful and allow us to dig in a bit. I appreciate it and you should be hearing back from someone soon.

SL3 - Unhandled Exception - In windows 10 after pasting text content into - Correct dialogue box

Hi folks, investing one today, its the first time I have see something like this. I was pasting text from powerpoint into a Feedback dialogue - nothing happened so I closed the box and this happened...any thoughts

Something have noticed a lot then copying and pasting into to SL3 - I did create a shortcut file I could run to clear the windows clipboard which seemed to help.

Latest Windows 10, latest Mac OS - latest Parallels 

Hi Las.  When you copied the text from PowerPoint, did you make sure to highlight only the text and not the actual text box?  Copying an object from PowerPoint will likely paste it as an image in Storyline, and if you try to paste the image into a feedback box on Form view, you might see some odd behavior.

I was able to highlight and copy just text from PowerPoint into both Slide and Form views in SL3.  Let me know what you think!

Hi Crytstal,

Thankyou  for responding

Only the text was selected. It seems to be a  theme for me at the moment with Storyline 3 and parallels. Have been using this setup for a number of years now and this the worst experience I have had with the tool.

I have had a remote session with parallels support who reviewed my parallels installation and and after a one or two tweaks said the application works as it should. Their response that no other application is having this problem, so I would need to come back to you guys.

Not one for wanting to give up, I managed to source a "no longer" supported app for windows 10 'clipboard viewer' I found that there was some increase I performance if I cleared the clipboard (attached screenshot) every once in a while - saved me having to restart.

I think my next project is to look at graphics drivers and if they are up to date (windows). One of the bigger issues is the screen redraw/refresh within the application (storyline) and delay or miss hits on objects i.e. click one item and move which is ignored and picks up another item, response time when this happens varies from between 2 and 5 seconds. Clicking menu items or double clicking text boxes renders strange results or no response.

As I am in the middle of a project I cannot consider doing a refresh and rebuild of my system.

I do recall you used to provide a tool that removed any  instances or references to older versions of storyline, but have been unable to find that currently.

Things I have carried out so far: Bearing I mind storyline 2 worked  like a dream as did storyline 360

Uninstalled  storyline 2  and storyline 360 trial and re-installed Storyline 3 full.

Review Articulate forum guidance on setting up Parallels to work effectively  with Storyline

Increased the ram and graphics memory

Saved files to root drive

Further compress any images - particularly png files

uninstalled storyline and re-installed

Contact virtual software supplier and request remote support.

I no longer attempt to copy text or images across from mac environment to windows virtual environment.

Hi Las.  I'm sorry this has been such a struggle for you.  I see that you opened a case with our support team, and that was exactly the move I would have suggested next.  I connected this discussion to that case so they have a fuller history of your troubleshooting.  I'm going to follow in the case as well and just make sure you get the help you need!

Thanks for sticking with it.  🙂

Hi Las.  Just checking in with you.  I see that Renato sent you some steps for doing a more complete reinstallation of Storyline 3.  Hoping you're making out ok -- please feel free to reply back to Renato with any changes since completing those steps.

Hi everyone, any news on this? I am finding Storyline so sluggish as to be almost unusable. Running high sierra/paralells 13 on a 2013 Macbook Retina (2.4ghz i7 16gb Ram).

I have done ALL the optimisations, turned off coherence and folder sharing, run locally on the C drive. It is like using a 486 in the nineties. The project is tiny (less than 1mb) with only vector graphics from inside storyline. No images.

Copy and pasting/dragging/adding states/switching between timeline and state view. Everything takes 2-3 seconds, often disappearing. Or I click and it's moved or gone. Are there any workable ways around this?

Amanda, I am experiencing the same thing.

Today's update states that this is fixed, but it's not, I am still experiencing this. We need to report more.

Hi Crystal,

Apologies for not responding just picking this up.

Unfortunately as I finished this work for the then client. I then  to went to my next client who wasn't as forgiving (or patient), I lost the contract had to ditch part way through. Their expectations were a lot higher and I really couldnt meet them on that occasion.

I was wholly intending to go back to Storyline 2, but not what the client wanted. 

I think because of the inconsistencies I was suffering platform wise, I have had to revert to another tool to get me by for the time being, as the risk vs reward of buying new equipment was not something I could invest in at the time.

I am thankfully now able to develop from two platforms so not wholly reliant on Mac and parallels, but will keep a watchful eye on progress when eventually this issue is resolved.