You are offline. Trying to reconnect... message when viewing course on LMS

@articular: you have integrated an error by design (this is not a simple bug)

please make storyline again compatible typical LMS webserver (with high load)

This is what Articulate Support is saying. They do not seem to understand this is a bug with the feature and it does not work correctly:

Hi Ali,

Thanks for patiently waiting as I look into your project file.

I tried publishing one of the courses in SCORM Cloud using Storyline 360 Build 3.74.30180.0. I wasn't able to experience the issue or replicate it.

Can you please click on the link below for the test invite?

Please note that: The offline notification appears in the published course when an LMS statement fails to record. The LMS statement keeps attempting to record until the learner's network connection is restored. When the LMS statement successfully records, the offline notification disappears, and the learner can continue taking the course.

Try testing it; you can share the link with other users to see if the issue persists. Otherwise, we are looking at an LMS or network issue that causes the problem.

Also, if the issue also happens to other courses that were published before November 22 update, most like like it's an LMS or Network issue.

Let me know how it worked for you and if you need anything else.

Thanks,

Fannie May Alba

Customer Support Engineer

Articulate Support - https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://articulate.com/support/__;!!OgnrLJOUc50AAzM!Pi8STWsmvuIGe3FPpg33hgHtg199JbM5XDh5jUPOgtzTEfW-laJzBy0vMtnZMnbkXeaS1tz97THEC2pZTTrS6v2r$

Hello Luciana,

Working with support was not helpful. Please, escalate this issue and remove this non-working feature.

>Also, if the issue also happens to other courses that were published before November 22
>update, most like like it's an LMS or Network issue.

they don't understand how internet works - no data from the server is guaranteed

if articulate does not withdraw this extremely problematic feature, they should document the exact NEW system requirements for LMSs so that LMS systems either adapt or officially refuse to host Storyline courses

@articulate - did you checked the new preloading methode with 

• web server with HTTP/1.1
• web server with HTTP/2

Scorm Cloud uses the newer HTTP/2 - and there do not seems to be problems

Update: Review 360 also uses HTTP/2

Hi, I would like to add to this as well - also frequently encountering the 'you are offline - trying to reconnect' error with storyline eleranings on our LMS. Can't really identify the commonality between what will and won't have the error and it's becoming quite the barrier.

Does the message "You are offline - trying to reconnect" disappear after a few seconds or does it stay?

My users and my own experience is that the message, "You are offline..." does not go away. Once it comes on, the training is frozen and will not move on. Some have had success with completely clearing browser, closing it for a minute, and then restarting the browser, LMS, and module. Others have not had immediate success after the browser clear, but in later sessions or on different device, have been able to complete that module that had previously had the error message. The message does not consistently appear on the same training, the same slide, the same browser, or the same device. Since it is sporadic, it does not seem linked directly to any of these causes.

We continue to have this issue this morning with Storyline 360 courses.  We have a support ticket open with SumTotal Learn (IS-04540292).  Can we make a connection between both vendors, or do you already have a relationship established for support?  I can replicate right now on Microsoft Edge.

>My users and my own experience is that the message, "You are offline..." does not go away.

@articulate: your preloader is broken - fix it !!!

Our only solution is to remove the attempt and have the learner begin again - very frustrating.

the resume function of storyline does not work in such a case?

Hello @articulate. Any update on fixing the bug? The comments above lead one to believe it is an Articulate issue... not a project configuration issue. This is affecting extremely large audiences for required training. Please let us know if there is a resolution ASAP! 

Hello everyone, so sorry to hear that this issue is becoming more prominent. I can see that we have some of our support team already working with most of you. If you aren't in a conversation with us yet, please open a case with us here. We will continue to collaborate and consolidate all the information on our end and I can promise to give you an update early next week on our findings. 

Hi everyone, just to keep everyone updated from last week. We are releasing Update 75 today which won't have any impact on the issue being discussed here. The team will continue to look into this this week. 

Edit: I'm also curious about the volume of learners affected by this since last week? Has this increased, decreased or are we continuing to see a consistent number of affected learners on a daily basis? 

There have been a number of comments in this thread about pre-loading. We were able to get courses to work in our problem instance by adding <script src="html5/data/js/xxxxxxxx.js"></script> tags into story.html for each of the .js files in the course. We put them immediately following the <script> tag for bootstrapper.min.js. This can be somewhat painful because some courses have a lot of .js files in html/data/js, but the alternative (courses that don't work) is also rather painful.

Hello James,

I find it ridiculous we have to put our own code in published files to fix a known issue Articulate refuses to fix, but thank you for sharing. Are you using SumTotal LMS or a different LMS? Articulate thinks the issue is with SumTotal but I am wondering if that is the only LMS this is happening on. 

You're right, it is rather ridiculous, but if you really need a course to be available, a band-aid approach is better than waiting for a solution from Articulate. We have not experienced any problems with our LMS (which is not SumTotal). We are experiencing this problem with courses published for web placed on an external-facing web server. Interestingly, the same courses run fine on an internal web server that is behind the firewall.

Hello Michael,

This is still affecting learners on a daily basis. It has not decreased at all. Despite working with an Articulate senior engineer on a support case, nothing has been fixed or resolved. It seems like Articulate engineers do not want to admit that their ‘feature’ does not work as intended. Please stop saying that this offline message comes up when there is no network connection and that it goes away when it is restored because that is not what is happening. Please remove this feature and push an update. Also, please stop asking us to send files and test things. Do the testing on your end, listen to your users and fix the issue. This is not isolated to certain files, a specific LMS, browser or device. It is widespread.

We were able to get courses to work in our problem instance by adding <script src="html5/data/js/xxxxxxxx.js"></script> tags into story.html for each of the .js files in the course

with this important information, the developer of articulate should find the error quickly

Jurgen, many thanks for posting this. Does the xxxx mean the published filename? I'm hoping there's a way to automate this as there's a lot of js files in publishing!

Regards Chris

Hi everyone! I wanted to make sure that we’re keeping everyone in the loop regarding these issues. We are continuing to investigate the underlying factors that may be contributing to the problem at hand. What we know so far is that some users appear to be running into the lost connectivity alert, and are unable to progress any further in courses aside from restarting the browser, device, or clearing the cache. The intention with this functionality is that the alert is automatically dismissed when the network connection to the course is restored.

We are taking this issue seriously and are continuing our efforts by working with affected users to understand how this feature is operating in the LMS’s involved. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with everyone who has responded to our support team.

In the meantime, here are steps you can take to disable the lost connectivity alert in your published courses.

For a course published to web,

• open the story.html file in a text editor, such as Notepad.

• search for the line that begins with features:

• remove the text ConnectionMessages, (including the trailing comma) from the line
• save the file

For a course published to an LMS,

• open the index_lms.html file in a text editor, such as Notepad.

• search for the line that begins with features:

• remove the text ConnectionMessages, (including the trailing comma) from the line
• save the file

After making this change, the lost connectivity alert will no longer be active in your course. You can deploy your course using your standard procedure and the functionality will be disabled.

have you tested, that the deactivate the feature "ConnectionMessages" solves the problem?

UPDATE: I have tested your temporary solution (with a missing image -> 404)

• the slides are starting with the "missing image" -> OK
• the navigation of the course is NOT frozen anymore -> OK

the real problem of the the "checked" preload is, what happens when the (correct ???) message appears

Lori Sorrells

"You are offline..." does not go away. Once it comes on, the training is frozen and will not move on.

you have seen the workaround ?

James Wallace

We were able to get courses to work in our problem instance by adding <script src="html5/data/js/xxxxxxxx.js"></script> tags into story.html for each of the .js files in the course

for clarification - this seems not only a LMS problem, it's a potential problem on ALL web server

James Wallace

We are experiencing this problem with courses published for web placed on an external-facing web server. Interestingly, the same courses run fine on an internal web server that is behind the firewall.

of course the most error message comes from LMS users - because probably most courses are used on LMS

This is a temporary solution to help authors get their learners unstuck by bypassing the lost connectivity feature. This is like rolling back to Update 68, but unlike a complete downgrade, this solution is more surgical and all the other features and fixes we've released from then up to 75 are still intact for authors to enjoy.

You also mentioned that this can be observed on both LMS and Web. That is correct. This is the reason why there is a solution for both environments in the earlier post. Thank you for reiterating that. 

We have seen the workaround, and haven't vetted or tested the changes James has brought up, instead we've opted for a much simpler solution of changing one line of code in the main html file than changing multiple .js files. 

Just making it clear that we are still investigating and still treating this seriously in spite of a workaround being present.