Audio not playing on Mac, Safari version 12.0.3

Hi James! 

Apple no longer allows media to autoplay in Safari 11+. As a result, an audio clip might not work on the first slide of a Storyline course. This article explains how to update your courses so learners have the best experience in Safari.

Let me know if that helps you! 

Thanks for the reply and I understand the Safari security changes as well as Chrome.  My problem is that the first 3 slides are video, then the fourth has audio on the timeline.  I'm trying a work around to have the user click another play button when they reach this slide which is kind of wonky.  I'm also concerned for other slides that have audio on the timeline.

We are also going to test if we put an audio clip on the first slide along with the video, that the play button will cover both throughout the training.

Hi James,

If there are videos on the first few slides that are automatically playing, that should allow your audio to play as well, unless your slides are set to advance automatically without user interaction. Do you see the play button prior to the start of the videos and do they have audio as well? 

Are your slide audio files set to play based on the timeline starting or are there any user-initiated triggers? 

I have the Play button when course starts, slide 1 being video that has audio embedded.  The audio on slide 4 is based on the slide starting.  No triggers. No auto-advance.

Hi James, 

Would you be willing to share your file with us so we can take a closer look? We'd like to do some testing in Safari on our end.

If that works for you, you can upload your file privately to our support team here. We'll give it a test and let you know what we find!

I've had similar issues reported with Safari not playing audio for my students, for courses published with the March 5 update to Storyline 3.  My courses are all auto-play, so if I'm reading all the information correctly, all of the auto-play content with audio will not play correctly on Safari?

The security update sounds like it is meant to address an issue where content (audio) plays unsolicited in a browser.  However, with Storyline courses in use, the user is clicking to open the presentation, so there is a click.  However what it sounds like Storyline reps are saying is that each slide in the presentation is treated as a new interaction, therefore if the slide auto advances, the browser will prevent audio from playing on each of the slides.

I feel like this is a poor user experience to have to click advance on every slide.  Many of our slides are very short, 5-10 seconds, while others may last several minutes.  On the back-end, it's really a decision of how to organize the presentation so that the course designer can keep everything straight.  We don't want the back-end to be a limitation on the front-end.  We want the user experience to be as seamless as possible, and as intuitive as possible.  Adding required "click-to-advance" functionality, at irregular intervals (10 seconds, or several minutes) that don't actually require any feedback or real interaction from the student is a negative for the student experience. We feel a better experience is to reserve student interactions for those times in the course when they actually need to provide feedback, such as completing an activity or answering a quiz.

So am I understanding correctly that there is currently no solution for Safari for auto-play content with audio?  The "solution" is either to disable auto-play, or to use a browser other than Safari?

Hi Dan,

A few notes on what you've shared:

• The autoplay changes were implemented by Safari to deal with any media playing unsolicited in a browser - and that would include when a learner clicks to open a course or new window. Once that window is open the browser is looking for a click in that window from the user to initiate the media. 
• Storyline 3, build 3.6.18134.0 would include the update we made to handle these changes with how media autoplays. If you've published with the latest update, you should have that fix which will behave as follows.

• Learners using Safari 11+ will see a play button when they launch or resume a course with audio or video on the first slide. Clicking the play button starts the course and allows the media to play. Audio and video on other slides should play as expected (unless your slides are set to advance automatically without user interaction).

   

Since your course isn't playing the media once initiated, I'd want to have our Support Team take a look and do some additional testing. If you're able to share it with us, you can upload using our case submission form and the team will delete all files when done testing. Let me know and I'll follow along too! 

I'm wondering if this is the same issue i'm having, although it sounds slightly different.  I am not experiencing it in Safari 11.1 but I just screenshared with a coworker who showed me that in safari 12.1, if he immediately clicks the "next" button to go to the next slide, the audio plays fine, so long as he didn't wait.

On any slide of the course, if he waited, say, 30 seconds to click the next button to advance to the next slide, after the slide he was on had reached the end.... the slide played, but no audio.   If he clicked "prev" and then "next" again in succession, the audio was there.

But any time that he waited a minute before clicking next to go to the next slide... the next slide plays with no audio.

I use Storyline 3 Update 6 3.6.18...

Thanks for reaching out, Eric. Happy to help you sort what's happening here!

To make sure I understand the behavior you and your teammate are encountering in Safari 12.1:

• The audio does not automatically play even though the slide is set to advance automatically. 
• The audio plays after revisiting a previous slide and clicking back to the slide with the audio.

Let me know if I'm off-base. And if you're able to share a sample file with me for testing, that would be gold! You can send it privately to me here. I'll let you know what I find, and will delete it after troubleshooting!

Hello James, Dan, and Eric!

I have good news! 

We just launched the newest version Storyline 360, v3.30.19518.0 this morning which fixed the issue where audio played inconsistently in versions of Safari 12 on macOS Mojave.

The next step is to update Storyline 360 by heading to your Articulate 360 desktop app and clicking "Update" next to Storyline 360.

As always, we are happy to answer any questions you have by posting in this discussion or you can contact our Support Engineers directly.