Why is my slide master causing so many problems??

Jul 14, 2014

Hi,

I have a problem! I have a storyline file with two slide masters. One is just blank, the other has layouts with a shape on the base layer, a trigger, and then a couple of items on a second layer.

The problem is, if the master is applied to any slide, the slide no longer shows up in preview or publish modes, and is not visible in the menu. If by chance you can actually get to the slide, it is just a grey background (no slide in the player).

The only thing that has worked so far is starting a new project, rebuilding the master slide item by item. Problem is - this is a limited fix. It means that it only fixes the slide that was selected at the time of the build (in this case, slide 4). As soon as the master is applied to any other slide, those slides no longer appear. And to make matters worse, even if you change the applied master/layout, it never comes back into view...

I just don't know what is happening or why!! Help??!!

Thanks, Mara

PS - I'll upload the file in a sec.

4 Replies

Tamara Robertson
Author

almost 10 years ago07/14/14 at 9:02 pm (UTC)

Ok - looks like I can't upload thanks to our internal restrictions. If anyone is up for having a squiz, I'll email it to you!

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
Staff

almost 10 years ago07/15/14 at 8:02 am (UTC)

Hi Tamara,

It sounds like some particularly odd behavior, and I'd want to first check that you're working on your .story files ad described below:

Work on your local drive (your C: drive).Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, includingfile corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior.
You should also make sure the directory pathto your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters(for example C:\Articulate).
Avoid using special characters, accents orsymbols in your file names.

If it's just this one file that you're continually trying to rebuild, I'd suggest after checking into those elements, that you try to import it into a new Storyline file to see if that resolves any of the behavior.

Next, if the behavior continues on all your .story files, I'd also look into conducting the repair of Storyline.

Tamara Robertson
Author

almost 10 years ago07/16/14 at 4:10 pm (UTC)

Ashley Terwilliger said:

Hi Tamara,

It sounds like some particularly odd behavior, and I'd want to first check that you're working on your .story files ad described below:

Work on your local drive (your C: drive).Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, includingfile corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior.

You should also make sure the directory pathto your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters(for example C:\Articulate).

Avoid using special characters, accents orsymbols in your file names.

If it's just this one file that you're continually trying to rebuild, I'd suggest after checking into those elements, that you try to import it into a new Storyline file to see if that resolves any of the behavior.

Next, if the behavior continues on all your .story files, I'd also look into conducting the repair of Storyline.

Hi,

Thanks - and yes, am always working from local. And this master slide issue is the only one I have that I can't resolve. I've rebuilt it several times, tried different types of assets within the slides (e.g. replacing a picture with a shape) to see if it was individual assets that were causing the problems.... all the standard fixes. I'm pretty confident at finding ways to make storyline do what I need it to... in this case though, I just can't get it to work.

I've reinstalled/repaired storyline, however this seems to be an ongoing problem. It's been replicated on two other machines here as well.

Thoughts?

Thanks

Mara

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
Staff

almost 10 years ago07/17/14 at 5:52 am (UTC)

Hi Mara,

I know you previously mentioned that you couldn't upload a file here because of internal restrictions, so without seeing how your masters are being applied and the behavior it's harder to diagnose what's happening. You mentioned it's replicated on two other machines - and I'm hoping you could tell us about the set up on your machine. I could also send you directions on how to share a file with me privately if loading it into the forums is part of the restrictions.

Why is my slide master causing so many problems??

4 Replies

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