Forum Discussion
Seekbar Sync Issues in Storyline 360 After Localization – English Audio Longer Than Spanish
Hi everyone,
I’m working on a multilingual course in Storyline 360 and ran into a tricky issue after localizing from English to Spanish.
The original English audio is longer than the Spanish version. When I replace the English audio with the ES audio in the Spanish version, the timeline in the English reflects the time that the Spanish audio has, causing the English duration of the audio to be longer. This causes the seekbar to continue running even after the English audio has finished,
which confuses learners and makes the slide feel like it's dragging.
To prevent users from clicking “Next” too early or thinking something is broken, I added a time-based trigger to delay the “Next” button until the timeline ends. But this feels like a workaround, not a real fix.
What I’ve tried:
- Replacing the audio directly in the timeline (messes up the versions)
- Using triggers to control navigation
What I’m looking for:
- A better way to have the seekbar reflect the actual audio length per language
- Tips for managing timeline/audio mismatches in localized courses
- Any best practices for syncing audio and navigation across multiple languages
Has anyone found a clean way to handle this? I’d love to hear how others are managing this kind of issue.
Thanks!
Marcela
9 Replies
i have checked both of these but issue is still exist.
Hello krishnagupta-d2,
Great call opening a support case. I see that you're working with my colleague Rafael. You're in excellent hands! We'll continue the conversation over in your case, so everything is in one spot!
honeyhoney it is just for only one version.
That would be a different issue than described here. I would visually check your timeline to ensure that its end aligns with the longest object. You can even right click and choose "Fit timeline to longest object".
To rule out synchronization issues based on how far into the project you are, try moving it to the first slide of your project to confirm that the issue still exists.
If you've done both of these and it's still not working properly, I'd start a new thread that describes your scenario thoroughly, including use of layers and what settings you have for the base and the layers.
Hi MarcelaMende220 and MaryGregg-f1028,
Thank you for the detailed context. I’m glad that HoneyTurner has also chimed in.
We’ve confirmed that the expanding audio behavior in localized courses is a possible bug. Many thanks to Mary for opening a support case and to my colleague Phil for helping identify it. We’ll update this thread as soon as we have any progress on the issue.
In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions. We’re happy to help!
Hi EricSantos MarcelaMende220 i am facing same issue. In one of our courses with around 100 slides, after visiting 60–70 slides, the course player seek bar and the audio become unsynchronized. The audio finishes earlier, while the seek bar continues to run. ( Case # 01178728)
Is there any work around for this?
Thanks,
Krishna
Is your scenario also specific to language dependent audio lengths or is there just one version for the slide?
I am working through the localization pilot and have run into the same thing with the localized content. Every slide in the course is unnecessarily longer in the English source language than the translated Spanish and French-Canadian. Syncing the audio with timeline items doesn't see to be possible as it changes the items in the souce language as well.
I would repeat your stated What I am Looking comment above:
What I’m looking for:
- A better way to have the seekbar reflect the actual audio length per language
- Tips for managing timeline/audio mismatches in localized courses
- Any best practices for syncing audio and navigation across multiple languages
If you need other interactions to sync to the soundtrack, you may need to use language layers. But, presuming it is only the end you're trying to resolve, then I'd just add a trigger: When media completes (Audio 1 (EN)) then jump to cue point. And set the cue point to the last moments of the slide. For the long audio, the progress will be smooth. For the shorter audio, it will jump suddenly from 80% complete to 100%, but at least it will appear that it did ultimately complete.
You could also make entirely separate slides and adapt your menu to only show 1 of them.I've never dealt with multiple languages to the degree you are, only Canadian vs American spelling and localized content. I found a combination of variables to handle spelling and small changes, plus layers to handle larger differences worked best. I used javascript to tweak the menu names to match.
