Videos not playing in published mode

Aug 14, 2012

I have published an elearning module on storyline and for some reason, the videos are neither showing, nor playing. I have checked the settings and have instructed the videos to play automatically with no luck. I have even inserted the videos as flvs and wmvs, and also imported from Articulate Video Encoder 09. This is frustrating, I am able to preview just fine. I have tried running the published module on IE8, Chrome and Firefox to no avail. I have now gone way past my work deadline and I am stuck.

What am I doing wrong? I am desperate for any suggestions. I have updated my flash player and done everything conceivable.

21 Replies
David Celaya

I dont know much about Storyline, but when this happens with Presenter, I always ask "Where are the files physically located?". Network drive or local? Flash video never plays in Presenter when the files are on our network server. Just a thought. Also try the ol' save as some other name, restart...export to new location with new name...etc.

Gerry Wasiluk

Storyline converts most video to MP4 format when published:  http://www.articulate.com/support/kb_article.php?product=st1&id=es3kzctg3aoq

Is the course then being put on a web server and you are trying to view from there?  If yes, the web server may need to have MP4 added as a MIME type:  http://www.articulate.com/support/kb_article.php?product=ap9&id=w9bvqxxido6t

Alonzo Hudgins

I having the same issue.  Our IT department has verified that all video and audio formats are loaded and working.  After days of troubleshooting and trial and error I have found that the HTML5 will play.  Now there is a small drop in quality but a huge lag time as the videos are loading to play. 

My process:

I am recording and editing video in .m2ts format.  I publish the video from the editing stage into .mp4 format to enter into the Storyline course.  I publish the course onto my local C drive.  Copy and paste all the output folder to our network drive.  From a Word html file I link the story.html file as a hyperlink for users to click on to access the course through our intranet.

Please let me know if there is something I am doing wrong here.  I really want to move forward in training material with this route.  Also in a few weeks we will be getting a LMS.  So I may be back for how to get them to the LMS.

David Celaya

Alonzo,

Some questions. You said the html5 version plays but lags when accessed from the network. Does the video playback quickly/smoothly when launched from your local drive? Does that video playback quickly/smoothly when launched from your local drive by itself, before you load it into Storyline? What is the bitrate on the mp4 you are loading (not sure what Storyline does as far as compression)?

Just trying to isolate whether the issue is with the video itself, Flash, something in the html, your network, or Storyline.

Alonzo Hudgins

Does the video playback quickly/smoothly when launched from your local drive?  YES

Does that video playback quickly/smoothly when launched from your local drive by itself, before you load it into Storyline?  YES

What is the bitrate on the mp4 you are loading (not sure what Storyline does as far as compression)? I would assume that it is around the average since I am using the standard optimized quality profile.

The preview within Storyline shows the videos running fine, quickly loading and so does the locally ran.  This is what has caused my confusion.  Everywhere but hyperlinked from the intranet page is running.

David Celaya

Agree with Gerry on the file conversion as a quick check, and to eliminate the possibility that video compression codec as causing an issue. If not in this case, then in general.

But based on your answers, it looks like you've eliminated everything as a possible problem but your network. It may be functioning fine for everything else, and be capable of playing back all the codecs as your IT have told you. But using elimination, the network looks like the culprit.

Do you have access to another network? Or can you place the files somewhere online and launch them from there?

As an example, I have a free dropbox account, and in it I have a "public" folder. I can upload multiple files in that folder, and then launch something like an articulate (or storyline... im assuming) exported package. Once you get an LMS, this will all be different, because your files will most likely be hosted there. Then your only concern will be making sure they run from that location.

Alonzo Hudgins

Well I tried Gerry's suggestion and the videos are loading and playing faster.  So I can considered that portion of the request solved.

But I am still confused as to why the html5 is playing and the html is not when viewed on the computer and why I am seeing a loss in quality.  Now when I say a loss in quality I am speaking to the sharpness and gloss of the slides and the objects in the slides.  The html5 seems to have a blur to it versus the html.  I am using IE10 now but was seeing the same issue with IE9 before upgrading.

As far as DropBox goes....that worked.  It worked with the html link.  Now the difference in this way than the ways that are not working so well is that it is a similar process to running it locally.  Meaning you open the output folder and click on the html file and the presentation opens up.  All the other options have used a hyperlink to the html file to open the presentation.  So I guess I can approach my IT team with some confidence in saying the problem is more than likely internal. 

Avanelle Joseph-Edwards

Hi all,

I know this question has been asked numerous times, but the most recent responses are from a year ago. I also cannot get my mp4 files to be seen and played when published in Storyline. For me, I am using Articulate Online to upload the files. The video is stored on my local PC. I have also tried embedding videos from youtube, using the web objects function and nothing works. I am using Storyline 2.

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Andrew Pulford

For me it was caused by incorrectly set permissions for the files on the web server. When I uploaded the files using Transmit it was setting the permissions for MP4 files and JPGs to 600 (rw----) whereas they should have been set to 644 (rw-r--r--).

So it's worth checking what your FTP client is doing to your files when it uploads them.

In Transmit go to Preferences > Rules > Permissions for the various file types, or look for something similar in other clients. You can also change file permissions in cPanel File Manager I believe.

My problem originated when I changed my permissions rules so that those particular filetypes uploaded to Amazon S3 would be Read:world by default  - I hadn't noticed that it also changed the permissions for FTP/SFTP upload.

 

Svetlana Bakowski

Hello, I am trying to figure out why videos do not play in a published project. This is what it says: (pls, see the attachment). 

I am also trying to figure out the following piece of instruction: "Right-click the site in IIS and select Properties". Could anybody explain to me what IIS is and where I can find it? 

Thanks!

 

Christie Pollick

Hi, Svetlana -- Thanks for reaching out, and that error message basically means that you will need to upload your course to the intended environment or where it will ultimately be accessed by your audience as described here. And also from what I was able to find, IIS is a server, and perhaps this will help shed a little light: http://www.iis.net/

Cheryl Vercoe

Hello everyone.

I have found a solution for my problem, which was that my MP4 videos weren't playing in my Storyline in IE. They played in Chrome perfectly, but IE was unable to play them all. Basically, after a troubleshooting many different avenues, I found that by publishing to Flash with HTML fallback, all of my videos played. Due to the fact that everyone in my organisation uses IE, I had to find a solution as our LMS and all integrated systems are tied to IE.

(My Storyline contains 20 short videos on slide layers. Initially, only half of them played whilst the others just had a black screen with no audio. I tried renaming and replacing all of the videos, moving the videos away from the start of the timeline, adding triggers to play media at start of timeline, Publishing to Web, CD, LMS, etc. As the videos are all MP4s, I considered converting them to a different format but that would have taken more time and would have expanded the size of the video files.)

If you are experiencing the  same issues, I would recommend publishing to Flash with HTML  fallback as part of your testing. Another thing to check if you are using IE is making sure that the ActiveX filtering is turned off.

Good luck.  

Katie Riggio

Hello, Matt. Appreciate your update, and excellent detective work!

When trouble strikes, making sure you're working locally is a great first troubleshooting step. If you need to place a copy of a project on a network drive for versioning control, backup, or collaboration with teammates, feel free to do that after you've closed Storyline.

For more tips on creating, saving, editing, and publishing Storyline projects to your local hard drive, check out this helpful article

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