Forum Discussion
Play and Stop buttons greyed out in Timeline
Sometimes my Play and Stop buttons are greyed out (and can't be used) in my Timeline in Storyline. What could be causing this, and how can I reactivate them?
Thanks!
Hello Everyone! ✨
I'm happy to share that we have released a new update for Storyline 360 (Build 3.76.30446.0).
In this update, we have implemented a fix for:
- Timeline preview buttons weren't always clickable.
As a first step, I recommend updating Storyline 360 to the latest version. Here's how:
If you have any questions, please let us know in this thread or privately in a support case.
Have a great day!
Thanks for popping in to share Ieva :) This is a great community!
Hi there, folks. In order for our team to determine what is causing the issue of the timeline preview buttons intermittently becoming disabled, could you answer a few questions?
- What version of Windows are you running?
- Do the buttons appear functional at first and then become disabled? Or are they disabled from the very beginning of working on the project?
- Does the size of the project seem to affect this behavior? What's the average size of project where you see this behavior?
Hopefully if we work together, we can find some common denominators on this elusive issue!
· I run AS2 on two different devices, running Windows 7 and Windows 10 respectively, and I’m afraid I can’t recall which project gave me the greyed out play/stop buttons.
· The buttons are functional at first. Then they grey out. The workaround suggested by other users—that you find a slide somewhere else in the project where the buttons work, and then return to the problem slide—worked for me. The buttons became functional again.
· I have only seen this issue in one project, although I have colleagues who have experienced this. My project was more than one scene, perhaps 40-60 slides at that point?
Thank you for looking into this for us!
I have had this same issue using Storyline 3 on a Windows 10 computer. My theory about this problem has to do with audio. As I observed moving from slide to slide, I noticed the play and stop buttons were grayed out while the audio loaded. Once the audio had finished loading, the play and stop buttons were available again. Thus, depending on the amount of audio you have on each slide, the time it takes to go from grayed out to available differs. Give it a try and let me know if anybody gets the same results.
I am also having this issue. I am using Windows 10. They were working fine when I was working on the project just yesterday, but now the option is greyed out. I don't believe it is size related, as I have worked on bigger files without the issue.
I've experienced this on several different projects, which varied in size. I was using Windows 7. The buttons worked initially, but at some point became grayed out. Once I found a slide that the buttons worked, they also worked on the original slide as well.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Donna - that sounds similar to what we've heard so far and we have the issue reported to our team. We'll keep you posted!
I also have this problem occasionally. I work on a Mac and use Parallels and Windows 7. I notice it when I'm working in a video-heavy file and have used the same workaround as others report -- moving to a different slide until the buttons "show up" again. The save/close/open cycle doesn't seem to help.
Thanks for letting us know those details, Lyn. We'll keep you updated as soon as we have news to share about this issue!
Ashley or Ali, as staff can you please remove me from this thread, so that I stop getting emails? They've been coming for a year or three, and I've tried unsuccessfully several times to figure out how to stop them. Tonight I noticed, however, that this thread was saying "Subscribe" as if I was never part of this discussion thread -- so I can't "unsubscribe." I investigated my profile/account etc., and discovered that even though I logged in with the personal email address from years ago, somehow Articulate is showing my work email address for the client I've been working with the past six months and therefore it's not letting me do anything with "lingering" stuff from my personal address. It's odd, because now if I use the "Share" address for my Rise content, my full name does not appear there as the author, nor my photo ... like the two accounts have somehow become fused and confused.
That's no biggie, since I think it will self-correct and sign out/back in with my work adderss. I just want to stop getting these emails at my personal account and I can't, if you all can please assist on your side. Thanks!
P.S. Yikes, now I'm even getting an email notification that someone "new" commented on this thread ... me! :O
Hi Michael! I'm opening a case so that we can communicate offline. I have a hunch about what the problem is, so I'll shoot you an email in the case.
I'm running Storyline360 on Windows 7 Enterprise SP1.
The buttons are generally functional at first and then become unavailable. Once they're unavailable, they stay that way (on every slide) no matter if I click around to other slides or close and reopen my project.
Size doesn't affect things for me. Right now I'm encountering this with a single scene, 22-slide project.
The only thing that works for me is to undock the timeline and then redock it. Not a big deal since I figured that out, but still annoying.
This work around is not working for me.
Hey Jennifer!
I'm sorry you're running into this too- thanks for letting us know. Our team is still investigating this issue, and I'd like to get a few more details from you to help track down the cause:
- Are you running Windows 10 in a virtual machine on a Mac?
- Where is your file saved to? Is it right on your C:Drive/desktop, or is it saved to a shared/network drive?
- Are you seeing this happen in any other files- or just the one in particular?
Keep me posted- really appreciate it!
So sorry that's happening, but thanks for sharing that workaround. I'll add that to our report and notify you as soon as I have more information!
I am having the same problem on 360 and it is eating into my development time. Please look into this problem.
