Forum Discussion
Problem with previous button
Hey em47!
It sounds like you might be running into a classic trigger conflict—based on what you said and without actually seeing the file, it could be a few things. Try this list of troubleshooting steps first, because this usually happens when the Reset to Initial State setting and your Timeline Pauses fight for control of the slide.
Here is a quick breakdown of how to fix this so your Previous button actually jumps instead of reloading:
1. Change the Slide Revisit Property
The reloading behavior is almost always tied to the slide's revisit settings. If it's set to Reset to initial state, it tries to restart the slide from the beginning while also processing your jump trigger, which can cause a looping or blinking effect.
- The Fix: Open the Slide Properties and change When revisiting to Resume saved state.
2. Check the Trigger Order
Storyline executes triggers in a strict top-down order. If you have a trigger that pauses or restarts the timeline listed above your Jump to slide trigger, the slide might hang or reset before it ever reaches the Jump command.
- The Fix: Move your Jump to slide trigger to the very top of the list for that specific button in the Triggers panel.
3. Watch out for "Phantom" Triggers
If you duplicated this slide from another one, there might be a hidden navigation instruction interfering with your custom button.
- The Fix: Go to Story View. Look for any red arrows that don't belong. If you see an extra arrow pointing back to the current slide, right-click it and select Disconnect.
Pro Tip: Since your timeline pauses after the entrance animation, make sure the button trigger is set to When user clicks, not When timeline ends, since a paused timeline never technically reaches its end.
Let me know if that does the trick, or not! If not, please share a screenshot of your Slide View, Story View, Slide Properties, and the Trigger Panel if possible—that will help me or anyone else in the community narrow down exactly where the conflict is, especially when dealing with Triggers 🖤
Thank you for this but I think I tried most of these things before posting! I did just now change the slide properties to 'resume saved state' and now the slide jumps to the next slide instead of reloading. Here are the screenshots you asked for, any further help would be greatly appreciated!
Your screenshots don't appear to have attached to this comment, just fyi. Happy to dig into it if you can post the .story file, but it's tough to say either way without deeper knowledge of the triggers.
Thank you! Yes I saw the screenshots didn't attach, I couldn't seem to get it to work! It shows them in the thread for me but earlier my messages were shown as rejected by moderation so I stepped away and was planning to try again later. I don't know if I'll have the same issue when posting the .story file but I'll have a go. I removed everything org-specific in this version so let me know if that interferes with understanding anything!
Nope, I was able to troubleshoot it perfectly, thank you. I'm seeing the nav issues arise from the combination of "Jump to Slide When the timeline ends" triggers and the layers' Resume saved state setting.
When I enabled the sidebar menu to navigate quicker, I could see the course skip around. Clicking the Previous button on 2.3 to return to 2.2 works. When 2.2 loads, its Resume saved state though means that the playhead loads at the end of the timeline so to speak, and since there's a trigger that says to Jump to Slide 2.3 if MiddleFeedback is true, the course then immediately jumps me back to 2.3. It's technically doing what was asked of it.
I was able to resolve it by changing the layer settings of 2.2 to "Automatically Decide" when Revisiting, though Reset to Initial also works. That way when the learner returns back to 2.2, the timeline starts over and its Pause trigger has a chance to fire. If the slide layer's set to Resume saved state, the Pause doesn't fire because the playhead is already past it when returning. 2.2 was/is resuming at the end of the timeline, and that immediately invokes the Jump to trigger.
