Storyline course crashing due to memory issue.

Sep 17, 2015

My storyline course is crashing, showing ‘Gray Circle with Exclamation Mark’. This is audio/video based course (100 video distributed in different slides).

After much investigation and review I reach the point where it seems to be memory issue of browser or flash player.  While navigating through course the memory kept on increasing and after sometime course crash showing ‘Gray Circle with Exclamation Mark’.  

I observed that storyline does not release the memory of previous slide on load of new slide which keep on adding and reaches the point where course crashed.

This is happing outside of LMS. I am sure the crash will be more frequent when viewing from LMS as server communication will also take memory.

Please suggest if there is any way to release the memory or to optimize the course to avoid such crash.

 Appreciate any quick help. 

22 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Pankaj,

Our support team can sign an NDA if needed. 

I've heard of users not seeing a decrease in the total file size after removing a video or image, and then saving as - but this is because of the "Undo" button it's technically still accessible. What you'll want to do is save it, then close Storyline and reopen the file. That should update the file size to reflect the deleted video(s). 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Pankaj,

As mentioned Update 7 did include some fixes associated with the playback and Internet Explorer memory issues - but since you're already publishing with Update 7, could you look next into where the course is being hosted? Perhaps that is also impacting the memory/loading behavior. You could use one of the sites in this article to upload to a different web server or if publishing for LMS you could use SCORM Cloud as it's an industry standard for testing LMS content. 

A course with a lot more videos, media, slides, etc. will be a larger load and take up more memory within the browser. Could you look at linking to the videos on a website or as a web object vs. embedding them directly into the course? 

pankaj srivsatava

Hi Ashley

After update course crash issue has been fixed to some extent. I am still facing following two issue.

1. On window 7, IE11, video playing not playing issue on slides with multiple videos.

2. Browser stops responding if user exit and resume course couple of times in LMS. This due to memory issue. how Storyline handles the flash memory. 

 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Pankaj,

If you upload it using that link it'll go to our team and it's confidential within our Support team and company and wont' be shared or posted publicly. You should be safe with a large upload file, but if it doesn't work on the upload page they'll also be able to give you another link where you could post your file. 

Tim Milke

Hi Ashley.

I have been working with Pankaj on this project, and update 7 has indeed solved our crashing issue. 

The secondary issue, is  on a particularly video-heavy slide.  On the base layer, we have buttons to launch a secondary layer, where a video plays.  It then returns to base layer.  The play changes to replay.  Clicking  launches the secondary layer again, but the video never loads.  Other assets on the layer do load.  It seems to work okay on Windows 8, but not IE on Windows 7.  The video can replay 2 or 3 times in Firefox and Chrome before failing.  It even fails in preview mode in Storyline2.

The files do have proprietary information, so we can't attach it to this thread, but we're okay with sending it to Articulate Support directly.

 

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Shyla,

Sorry to hear that you're experiencing a similar issue. This thread is quite dated, so I'd like to start new with you here.

Curious if the issue happens in any course you are working on or just this particular one?

If you cannot re-create the issue in a new course, I would advise to import the file into a new one and proceed.

If it's happening in any/all files, you should certainly conduct a repair of your software. Or if you'd like to update to the latest version, that will repair your software as well.

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.