Video issues in Storyline

Mar 14, 2013

Terry McDonald
By Terry McDonald

Greetings to all,

I am having video issues, such as not starting, freezing at random points, and disappearing off the slide all together. 

I used Storyline's record screen option to record a video.  I then published the project so that I could grab the .mp4 file from the story_content folder (*note: I also tried to copy the video from one Storyline project to another with the same problems).  I inserted this video into another Storyline project as a video tutorial.  The video is a 5 minute video (3.5MB in size). The video is set to play when triggered.  I have selected the option to show the video player controls from the Movie Tools Options section.  I then published this project with the video.

Now for the issues:  I have had 7 different users on Windows 7 Professional (some 32 bit and some 64 bit) computers try to run the published file.  My computer and one other play the video fine.  The rest have have various issues.  One of the computers can't see the video at all.  On another couple of the computers the video stops playing and disappears off the slide at random points.  Another computer randomly stops playing the video and won't restart.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this?

14 Replies
Christine Hendrickson
11 years ago03/15/13 at 8:04 am (UTC)

Hello Terry,

How is the course being viewed? Do you have the course uploaded to an LMS, web server, or are you publishing to CD? Try to make sure your users aren't viewing published output files locally as this sounds like it may be the case and cause of the problem. 

If you view published Storyline content on your local hard drive or send it to someone else to view on their local hard drive, you'll encounter security restrictions from the computer, web browser, Flash Player, and network that'll cause various features of your content to fail.
To properly test your published content and share it with others, upload it to the environment for which it was published. Please review the following article for details:
If you are uploading the course to an LMS or web server, what browsers are being used to view the content? Are you able to share a link to the course here, or privately with our support team for testing? 
Terry McDonald
11 years ago03/15/13 at 9:12 am (UTC)

Good morning Christine,

Thank you for your reply.  I am publishing for CD and zipping the files.  I was originally emailing the zipped files to the testers, but I have since started placing the zipped files on a network share.  They are in turn extracting the files to their desktop to run. 

Somebody mentioned that it could be the audio.  The audio was created using Dexster.  The format was a wav file that is 16 bit Stereo, 44,100 Hz, and encoded in PCM.  The audio file was then imported to Storyline and I created slide actions to accompany the audio.  This was then video recorded using another open copy of Storyline.  Is this the best audio format to use?

Terry McDonald
11 years ago03/20/13 at 11:54 am (UTC)

WOO HOO!  Got the video working.  As I said earlier, I was publishing on my local C: drive, compressing into a zip file, and uploading to a network share.  The testers were extracting the published files to their desktops to test, which was not working. 

The fix was to create a folder on the tester's local C: drive and extract the published files from the network share to the local folder and run them from there.  I am assuming that the reason this is working is because our desktop profiles are stored on the server.

Terry McDonald
11 years ago04/16/13 at 2:03 pm (UTC)

Back to this project again.  As I mentioned above, I got the video working.  Now I have encountered a new problem. 

I have published the project for Web with HTML5, Mobile Player support, and offline viewing.  When trying to view on an iPad with the latest version of Articulate Mobile Player installed, it goes to a black screen and never progresses.  We have several other projects that work fine, but this one is giving me challenges. It did the same thing on two different iPads.

Could it be the video haunting me again?  Or something else?

The published web version is available here.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Christine Hendrickson
11 years ago04/17/13 at 10:44 am (UTC)

Hi Terry,

Thanks very much for the link. I'm not quite sure I'm seeing the same thing, however. I tested the file on my iPad, with the most recent version of the Articulate Mobile Player and the video plays for me, but with no sound. Good news is, I can see it, but I cannot hear anything. 

Also, I want to confirm the video you're referring to is the "Instructions" video. Is that the right one, or am I looking in the wrong slide?

Thanks!

Christine

Terry McDonald
11 years ago04/19/13 at 10:23 am (UTC)

Good morning Christine,

The problem I am having is that when I try and view the above link through the AMPlayer, it never loads.  It shows a black screen and stops there.  I have deleted it from the library and tried accessing it again with no change.  This has happened on two different iPads.

Since I had problems previously with the video, and the rest of our projects don't have videos, I was making a guess at the video being the culprit. 

Thank you,

Terry

Christine Hendrickson
11 years ago04/19/13 at 11:41 am (UTC)

Hi Terry, 

So strange. Again, when I look, the video plays on my iPad, but there's no sound. I'm starting to wonder if it may be an issue with the MP4 MIME type support on the server that's hosting the content. 

Take a look at this article and see if it helps resolve the issue:

Articulate Support > MP4 videos require a MIME type on your server to play properly

If the video still doesn't play properly, or at all, are you able to post the .STORY file here? I can upload and test it on our end if you'd like.

Thanks!

Christine

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