Forum Discussion
Storyline audio starts automatically
All of our Storyline slides used to have a play button on the cover slide that the learner clicked to begin the audio. The play button still shows in Player on the cover slide, but is not visible on the Storyline slide in Rise. The Storyline slides now just start playing audio automatically, so the learner has no control. It appears, looking back that is has happened to all our trainings that we have created over the last year. This is new. Is there a solution and has something changed?
4 Replies
When you say the learner has no control, you mean that the embedded Storyline slide/course doesn’t have the play/pause button enabled? I don’t embed enough Storyline slides in Rise to be familiar with a change, and when I do they’re typically audio-less complex interactions, but a short-term solution might be to publish the content with your own “begin” button inside the Storyline slide. That way the audio only plays when the learner is ready, assuming its way down the page on Rise or something.
I do have the play/pause button activated. It shows in the bottom, left of the slide. What I originally had was a play button in the centre of the storyline slide when I use a cover photo. This still appears in the cover photo, but now does not appear in Rise, so the slide now plays automatically when the learner scrolls down, instead of them being able to click the play button in the centre of the slide. I just wondered what changed and if I can reverse this somehow in settings? I could put a play button slide at the beginning of each but this would mean me going back over all our trainings to create. A very big job!
Hi SallyM,
Thanks for the additional detail, and thanks to AndrewBlemings- for jumping in with suggestions.
What you’re seeing is most likely related to browser autoplay behavior rather than a change to your Storyline file itself. On desktop browsers, Storyline blocks in Rise are designed to autoplay, but browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Safari can handle embedded audio/video differently over time, especially when the first slide contains audio or video. Firefox tends to behave more consistently here.
Because of that, the large centered play overlay may no longer appear consistently in Rise, and the Storyline block may begin playing automatically once the learner scrolls to it.
At the moment, there isn’t a Rise setting that restores the older play-overlay behavior universally. The most reliable workaround is to intentionally prevent autoplay within Storyline itself, usually by adding a custom “Begin” button or blank intro slide before the audio starts.
I completely understand that updating existing trainings would be a significant effort, though.
