Forum Discussion
LMS Playability Issue
My reaction is that there is no problem, just a bug in Blackboard that falsely reports issues.
Speaking as someone who used to get paid to write error messages, the one reported to you is a failure. Error messages should describe the issue in a way that helps you fix or avoid the problem. That one could just as effectively say, "Error."
I can't imagine why duplicating the project and then uploading the duplicate would avoid the error. My first thought though is something related to the SCORM, such as the project being exported in SCORM 2004 when your current implementation of Blackboard only accepts SCORM 1.2 for example, or publishing to the Web format (which can still be zipped) instead of to SCORM.
I'm of the mind Carl is, though: if it's playable and reports completion appropriately, maybe it's just a benign gremlin?
The duplication worked for 3 other SCORM files. It had the message, duplicated to new project, SCORMed, uploaded into Blackboard, and no playability message. I exported the SCORM in all the versions in Storyline and still had the message in these files. These files played fine when testing in learner preview and reported completion as it should. It must be a benign gremlin😑. Thank you for your response.
Two uploads of the same file should be bit-for-bit identical, especially since they're Zip files that have a built-in CRC-32 check on the contents of the archive.
Logical implication: it's a Blackboard weird behavior. Alternative: uploads are inconsistently corrupting files, but Blackboard doesn't properly catch and handle CRC errors from its unzipping code.
Thank you. I had someone else check the Storyline files that were still giving me the playability message, and they didn't find any issues in those files. We are thinking Blackboard is the issue knowing that uploads can be corrupted. However, our LMS teams said they couldn't find the issue in Blackboard. So here we are. For now, there are no issues on the learner end. So hopefully, it will continue to be no issue. We are doing an overhaul on these modules but not until next year or so. Thank you for your responses. I appreciate your time.
My reaction is that there is no problem, just a bug in Blackboard that falsely reports issues.
Speaking as someone who used to get paid to write error messages, the one reported to you is a failure. Error messages should describe the issue in a way that helps you fix or avoid the problem. That one could just as effectively say, "Error."
Can I ask what you mean when you say you "SCORMed" the files after duplicating them?
When we publish content from Storyline for the LMS, Storyline includes some extra files necessary for the published web content to talk to the LMS, such as an imsmanifest.xml file.
Some designers and developers do create those SCORM files by hand or even use preformatted templates, but if we're publishing from Storyline we rarely need to "SCORM" anything. Me personally, I publish, tell Storyline to ZIP the folder, and then I upload the zipped folder to Workday's LMS. No editing or altering of files needed.
If you're doing something extra to the published output on top of what Storyline is adding, that may be a source of (or solution for) the hiccup.
I do the same as you. I publish, choose the SCORM version (usually SCORM 1.2) available on the dropdown (no creation of anything), and zip into a file. Upload from that file into Blackboard. This has been the first time I have seen the playability issue. We are uploading into the Ultra version, so I am not sure if that is where the bug lays.
Could be, though your duplication making a difference is a head-scratcher. Glad it at least functions, and hopefully the gremlin keeps to its corner.