Storyline not publishing, then freezing and corrupting files

Dec 01, 2014

When I go to publish my articulate modules, about 90% of the time my mouse will just sit and spin and never publish the module. Then the whole thing just freezes. I end up having to use my task manager to do a force shut down. Upon my first attempt to fix this, I have uninstalled and reinstalled the software (just recently upgraded to Storyline 2). Now, I’m still running into this problem however, now I cannot open the files after I force shut down. I get an error message (see attachment). Majority of the time, this happens on new modules that I'm publishing for the first time.

27 Replies
Lesly Becerra

The problem is happening before I put it out on a drive for end users. I create the module from my computer at my desk. Once I finish my designing, etc., I go to publish the module and this is when the problem is happening. It freezers when I publish for the LMS or as a Word Doc.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Lesly, 

When you're creating and editing the file, and when you're publishing it though you'll want to confirm that's occurring on a local drive - not on a network or USB drive as that article mentions. Trying to publish to a network drive may be causing the error you're seeing. 

I'd also look into conducting the repair of Storyline detailed here. 

Diana Myers

@Lesly, @Ashley - I'm having the same "freeze/lockup" occur VERY frequently - 5 or 6 times a day.  I haven't narrowed it down to exactly what preceds the lock up when trying to publish, but it seems to happen most often when I try to publish shortly after saving my SL2 file.  The file is located/saved on my hard drive and I'm publishing to my local folder "My Articulate Projects," and I'm publishing to the Web and the options for publishing for HTML5 are deselected.

I'll keep trying to figure out why it freezes, but when it does freeze, I can't get past clicking the pubishing button - the publishing progress bar doesn't come up and the cursor just spins...  When I click Cancel, I get the prompt "Are you sure you want to cancel?" but when I click Yes, the cursor continues to spin and it just hangs until I go into the Task Manager to end task.

If I can figure out exactly what I've done before it freezes, I'll try to do a screen recording to show you.  Thanks for your time!

Diana Myers

Well, I had successfully published to the Web (without HTML 5 selections) several times over the past hour (since I had to use Task Manager to shut down SL), but then it locked up again when I tried to publish.  Immediately preceeding the attempt to publish, I had I changed the fill color on 2 objects and clicked the save button.  Was able to record screen of what it looks like when it freezes. 

Also pasted what it looks like from the Task Manager - task manager thinks the program is running correctly, but there's no way to exit from the frozen publishing attempt other than to End Task.

Diana Myers

@Ashley (or the other amazing Articulate Staff), I had a publishing freeze happen again the first time I tried to publish the file today.  Immediately preceeding the freeze up, I made formatting changes to 2 text entry fields on a slide and clicked the Save icon on the ribbon.  I had Replay recording my screen when I tried to publish, so I was able to capture what happens. 

Thankfully I haven't recieved the "corrupt" file error message that Lesly has recevied, but it's still concerningl  I'm happy to share my source file if it would help.  Thanks for your time and help!

 

Lesly Becerra

I find that it happens almost every time without fail when I copy a project and rename it or insert a results slide from another project into a new project. When I go into publish it, I change all the title fields to match so it's not pulling up the old projects name, and I can almost guarantee 100% of the time on the first run of publishing it, it freezes. But it never fails that the second time it works (even though I do all the steps).

I have run a repair, have uninstalled and reinstalled twice and installed all most current updates. None of these have resolved the issue.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Diana,

It looks like we missed you on Friday evening (I'm on east coast time) so I'm glad you went ahead and submitted a support case over the weekend. Can you share your case number here so that I can follow along? 

@Lesley, thanks for confirming you went through the repair steps, and I just wanted to confirm that you went through the steps detailed here, as it's the more involved repair which also removes registry keys or any other lingering files which could be interfering. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Diana,

I looked in on your case this afternoon and see that John shared the following: 

I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues with publishing your file. I was not able to experience any problems with publishing your file on my end. 

I would recommend that you try deleting the temporary files for Articulate and then try to republish. Please see this article for more information. (Reference Presenter, but the same concept will apply for Storyline).

If you are still having issues, then please follow the troubleshooting steps in this article to fix unexpected or erratic behavior in Articulate Storyline 2. 

Diana Myers


@Ashley - yeah, I tried deleting the temp files, but it didn't work.  I've experienced several new buggy-issues in the same file - things like the font of a text entry box changing after it's been formatted, triggers that change from the OR condition to the AND conditions - but at this point, I'm so close to my final publish that I'm nervous about following the steps to fix erratic behavior.  I've accepted the freezing (since I always save before I try to publish) and I'm just hoping to get the final project out the door by next week.

I'll try to go back and log the other items I've found after I get this project completed.  Thanks for your follow up!

 

Lesly Becerra

While I was in the process of following the steps you outlined in your hyperlink, my computer crashed and had to be rebuilt. Since then, I have not encountered the issues I had previously. While this is great, I unfortunately cannot pin point what it was that was causing the error let alone if your steps fixed the problem or if the rebuild did. I will continue to keep an eye on this and let you know if I encounter these issues again.

Thanks,
Lesly Becerra

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