Web Links Will Not Work
Jul 23, 2013
I am a new user of Storyline and have a few years experience with Presenter. In presenter I could test my web links in Preview to ensure they worked properly. When I try to test them in Storyline I get an error box stating "The Link is not active during Preview."
When I published the course and loaded it into our LMS the links work as designed. I do have an issue with a published file I saved as a .exe file on a network drive outside of our firewall for people outside of our organization to view the lesson and provide feedback. The web links do not work for them when they play the lesson. I have them in the lesson as both resources and triggers off a content object. Neither work.
In presenter when I made the publised file a .exe file and saved to our network drive my web links worked fine. Can anyone explain what may be happening and how I get around it?
9 Replies
Hi Mary Lou and welcome to Heroes!
Can you share a link to the published output so that I can see if I get the same error message?
Thanks!
Thanks Ashley, here is the link we use
https://extranet.carlsonwagonlit.com/LED/advising_codeshare/advising_codeshare.exe
Hi Mary Lou,
Thanks for sending that along. I didn't get any error messages while viewing your file, but also was not able to open the links. Are you able to send along the source file too? You can attach it here using the paperclip icon.
Thanks!
Mary Lou, I ran the .exe file and the links (under Resources and the Regulations slide) work fine for me, so do the demos/videos. I'm on IE10/Windows 7.
Interesting Michael - I ran it in Google Chrome, and all the demos/videos worked but not the links.
Thanks for your troubleshooting help Ashley and Michael. This is what is happening for my users. Some can click on the links with no problem, for others it does not work.
I tried to attach my source file and I keep getting an error:
404-File or Directory Not Found. The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarlily unavailable. I will keep trying to attach.
I would like to understand if it is a setting in Storyline I need to set or if the issue may be based on the internet settings of the user.
Hi Mary Lou,
Can I have you open up a Support case so that we can look at your file and try to publish it ourselves to see how it works? Thanks!
Did this issue get resolved? I'm having the same issue.
Hi Yenn,
I was able to find the last response for Mary Lou's case - it looks like it's related to viewing it locally/launching the .EXE file.
Here's the response:
"The links do not work if I use Google Chrome but will work if I use Internet Explorer 10.
This may be related to the security restrictions of the computer running your presentation or the security settings in their browser.
To be sure that the hyperlinks will work in another persons computer, you need to put the published output in its intended environment: Web server if it's published to Web, LMS, Articulate Online etc.
When they run the EXE file that you've created, it actually downloads the published output of Storyline in the Temp folder in their computer. This is similar to running the published output locally. And running the published output locally is not recommended because it might not work on some systems that have strict security policies.
If you need others to view your presentation, upload it to a web server and give them the URL."
Can you tell us how you're viewing the published presentation, please? Are you viewing the published output files locally, or are you uploading to a web server or LMS?
If you're viewing your published files locally, this may be the problem. As mentioned in the response above, if you view a published Storyline presentation 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 article below for more information:
Publishing and Sharing Articulate Storyline Content
If you do not have access to a web server or LMS for testing, you could try using SCORM Cloud.
Another option would be to use our Tempshare server. Just keep in mind that this server is only available for testing content - it is not officially supported by Articulate and all content will be removed automatically after 10 days.
You're always welcome to try out Articulate Online, as well - it's available for a free 30 day trial.
If you're uploading to a web server or LMS, please try clearing your browser cache. If that doesn't help, try viewing the project in a different web browser.
Here are the download links for the most popular browsers, other than the ones you mentioned, just in case you don't have them:
Let me know if you still have trouble viewing your content after trying the suggestions above.
Thanks!
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