Unable to Preview/Publish...

Sep 13, 2023

Spencer Wolf
By Spencer Wolf

I (as well as some others) have lost the ability to either publish or preview from Storyline 360. Any project just gets stuck somewhere random on the progress bar, usually "Preparing to create slides..."  I say stuck because the progress bar does move, just maybe 1-2% every 15-45 minutes, but eventually it will freeze altogether. 

This isn't exclusive to one project, one client, or even myself - I know someone else who just started having the same issue around the same time. I had a colleague preview and publish the courses I'm working on without issue, yet I can't even open a new blank project and preview a blank slide. 

We can't preview a single slide, scene, a whole project,  and we can't publish through ANY option.

Is anyone else having this same issue?

6 Replies
Eric Santos
8 months ago09/13/23 at 3:50 pm (UTC)

Hi Spencer,

I'm sorry you're having issues previewing and publishing your Storyline projects. Great idea to open a chat case as well! I see you've connected with my teammate, Johnrey. I encourage you to continue troubleshooting with him or confirm if the troubleshooting steps provided did the trick.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Spencer Wolf
8 months ago09/13/23 at 3:58 pm (UTC)
NOTES FOR TROUBLESHOOTING:
 
  • CLARIFICATION: The issue is that publishing/previewing starts, but then slows down to an almost complete halt. Sometimes there is additional, albeit little, progress made - though completing those tasks might take days at that rate.
  • Issue occurs for random users, some have the issue others don't. 
  • Issue occurs in both past Storyline projects that worked fine before, and new/blank projects.
  • All users are on the most updated version of Storyline 360.
  • All drivers are up-to-date/current on various devices.
  • No one is on the same network.
  • The issue doesn't appear user-specific hardware-related, as this is affecting various devices.
  • Issue present despite uninstalling and reinstalling Storyline 360.
  • Issue present after restarting/rebooting the computer.
  • Issue is not network-based (including VPN-related)
  • Issue is not related to .NET Framework 4.8 Advanced Services
  • Issue present despite a deep/clean uninstall using the 360cleanup batch command.
Spencer Wolf
8 months ago09/14/23 at 3:57 pm (UTC)

NOTES FOR TROUBLESHOOTING - PT. 2:

MAJOR UPDATE: I found something that directly affects the speed of publishing/previewing. AGAIN, the issue is not that I'm unable to preview/publish at all - just that at the rate it was taking, it would take whole days to publish a course, and up to an hour to preview a slide - if it would load. 

First, this morning I was able to get some slides to preview. However, this was inconsistent. Sometimes one slide would load after 5-10 minutes, even a blank slide. Though sometimes that same exact slide would take 20-30+ minutes to load before I'd cancel the preview. There wasn't much rhyme or reason.

So, how did I go from taking 5 - 30+ minutes to preview one blank slide to publishing an entire course to Review360 in 5 - 7 minutes?

I entirely disabled my antivirus.

I thought something was off with Storyline when it was using almost no resources on my computer. All the CPU, GPU, and Disk usage was <1%. The Articulate 360 Desktop App was using up more than Storyline 360 was publishing or developing a course. I could close the Articulate 360 Desktop App, and Storyline's usage would go up a bit, but it was still low. However... I noticed my antivirus was running a bit higher than usual. So, I disabled it.

Mind you, I disabled my antivirus halfway through previewing an entire course. It had been stalled at around 45% for 10 minutes, but as soon as I disabled my antivirus; 50%, 60%, 80% - BOOM - I'm previewing an entire course. So, I tried it again, this time with the antivirus off the entire time. It took about 5 minutes to preview the entire course. I tried it again, but with the antivirus back on. NOTHING. It loaded about 20 - 30% and stalled. I tried disabling my antivirus again and Storyline froze up. I canceled the preview, with my antivirus disabled, tried publishing the course. Now, I had tried earlier this morning, but it didn't even make it past the 20% mark for the first half hour - which is when I gave up. However, with the antivirus disabled, things were different.

About 7 minutes later the entire course is published.

I turned my antivirus back on, tried it again, and Storyline won't go past "Preparing to create slides..." and still gets caught at about 20 - 30% before it freezes.

I'm not sure if it's causation or correlation, but it seems like something might be there. I'm not sure if it's related, but the additional sub-processes come up under Storyline while publishing/previewing and I wonder if there's any conflict with the antivirus:

  • CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe (Additional processes come up during publishing/previewing)
  • Console Window Host
  • mediainfo-5.exe

It might be worth mentioning that I'm using McAfee Business Protection.

Spencer Wolf
8 months ago09/14/23 at 4:02 pm (UTC)

I'm not sure if something with Storyline isn't playing nice with McAfee, or if McAfee isn't playing nice with Storyline, or if that the Windows update from last week is causing a conflict with Storyline which is causing an issue with McAfee or what-have-you. It might be that my OS had issues updating, causing my antivirus to run high, which is throttling Storyline - though everything else seems fine on my computer.

I figured it would be worth mentioning that when even the batch command to fully wipe Storyline/Articulate had no luck/success, turning off my antivirus had almost immediate results. 

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