Unable to delete triggers

Hey Megan,

Hmm, that's odd! I'd like to get a few more details from you:

• What version of Storyline are you using?
• Are you unable to delete any trigger, or just the one you've shown in the screenshot? 
• Have you tried saving your file and repairing Storyline? 

I'm having the same problem, and I've seen other users reporting it as well. In the attached, see the object Text Entry, which has three triggers. I only need one, but can't delete any of them.

The workaround is to make a copy of the control, which drops the extra triggers and assigns a new variable. I can then delete the old control.

While there is a workaround, it's very annoying and needs to be fixed, as it wastes time.

I use Storyline 360.

Hi PTI, thanks for sharing your file! The trigger "Set text entry equal to the typed value when the control loses focus" can't be deleted by default. That trigger is automatically added when you insert a text entry on a slide. 

I'm not sure how you had three triggers associated with one text entry, but you can remove them by deleting the text entry and replacing it with a new one. Here's a demo to show you how!

OK, that makes sense. The copy/paste workaround is better than recreating the object from scratch, as it preserves all your other object properties. Thanks for looking into it.

I had a similar issue with a multiple choice question and was able to get rid of the extra trigger based on this workaround.  Thanks for sharing!

Some triggers are connected with objects and the only way to delete them is to delete the object. For example If You copy a submit button to non quiz slide, You will also have a trigger that can't be deleted without deleting the button.

I also have several text entry objects that have two "Set text entry equal to the typed value when the control loses focus" variables attached to it. 

And to make matters worse, when I try to change the variable to something else it only effects one of the two triggers and I don't seem to be able to affect the other one no matter which one I try to edit. 

I also can't cut and paste or delete these text entries as they are part of a series of fill in the blank questions.

I recognize that I could potentially solve the problem by rebuilding the question slides, but I have a lot of custom design and triggers (see attached file), so that process would be very complicated.

Any other suggestions?

I was able to find a work around to this by duplicating the one slide that was working right, deleting its "incorrect" layer and copy and pasting the right "incorrect" layer from the slide I was trying to copy.

I'm just glad I had one working slide, or this would have been a much more arduous process.

Hi Lauren,

Thanks for sharing your file! I looked and saw a few examples where there were two triggers to set the value based on text entered, but it was adjusting different variables as this one shows: 

Were these the ones you ran into trouble with? I can see that I can't delete either of those, but I added in a new text entry and it only had one trigger assigned to it. Can you tell me more about how you added these in? 

Hi Ashley,

Yes those were the ones I was having trouble with. In the uploaded file the one named "Ok!" was working just fine, the ones named "example #" all seemed to be having the same problem as the one you picked out.

The file I uploaded was based on an older file so I don't remember specifically, but I know the base of these slides are fill-in-the-blank questions. From there I added all of the characters/animations/additional variables. I believe I also changed the variable to attach to the custom variable I created rather than the default "text entry" variable, but I don't remember exactly. It's also likely these slides were duplicated multiple times along the way. I could see that being the cause of the problem, but I'm not sure when exactly the second variable popped up.

Update: I discovered today that trying to import the slides from another Storyline project (created in the same version) will create the double variable issue, but copy and pasting (either within the same project or from one project to another) will not create this issue. Reassigning the variable (as opposed to renaming) does not seem to be a problem.

Thanks for the insight into your process and for sharing the solution you used, Lauren!  We have seen just a handful of these situations where the text entry triggers get duplicated and are unable to be deleted, and it's difficult to nail down why it's happening.  Like you, I suspect it has to do with duplicating the slides, and reassigning vs. renaming the variables created.

If you run into this issue while creating new quiz slides or text entry interactions, though, please let us know!

This is a problem I have been having a lot lately. Randomly unable to delete triggers. Has there been an update?

Hi Emma,

Sorry to hear that you came across this, and I appreciate you sharing an example with our Support team!

Referencing the case, Lejan uncovered:

We haven't been able to recreate this on our end and we typically see this on projects with corrupted objects that prevent the trigger associated with it to be deleted. 

To get rid of the trigger, we recommend to delete the problematic object and recreate it. And to make sure that the file is stored on a local hard drive.

Let us know if there's anything else we can do!