Storyline file size

Hi,

This needs to be fixed.  Our LMS has a hard time with large file sizes, sometimes not even loading them.  Adobe Captivate has had optimization for a long time.  In Captivate you can both select unused files to delete them from the library as well as see a library listing of all the individual file sizes that make up the course for better file size management.  When you're building you often just add content, not seeing that a media item is more bloated in size than another.  Articulate - Please fix this as it causes issues some LMSes and perhaps elongates the time to load the course.  If there was an optimize for the file image quality and cleanup that would go a long way.  If Adobe has it, then Storyline should too.

Hi David,

I know this thread dates back to some earlier versions of Storyline - but I'd want to know a bit more about what version you're working on and if you had tried out Justin's recommendations earlier in this discussion? Also if we could take a look at the file, that would help our team do some additional testing. Can you share it with our Support team here? 

This bloating issue is still a problem in Storyline 360. Save as only removes so much cached data, there is still at least 30% of the data remaining. I have 40 story files that only have a single video in them that are double the size of the video. Makes working out of a repository extremely aggravating and development takes a huge hit having to re-insert videos and there triggers/animations every time we change a video.

I'm not interested in sending all of my story files for you to look at. That is not a solution for this problem anymore as from all the users above with the same problem and responses.

I'm going to move our enterprise license and all the seats to Captivate.

Really sorry for the trouble, Cameron!

A project file might not immediately shrink in size when you delete a video. Storyline keeps deleted assets temporarily after you delete them in case you need to click Undo to restore them. The good news is your project file will eventually shrink, usually after saving it a couple times. But you can also get it to shrink right away by saving and closing the project file, then re-opening it and saving it again.

I went through and tested the re-saving option on multiple files. I opened and resaved 6 times resulting in a file size that was no less than 2X the video file it contained. The only way to get it down to normal size was to import the scene into a new file, which is just too daunting of a task when you have 40 courses (all with individual story files/SCOs for each lesson) and a catalog of 100+ more courses on the docket to be converted out of flash.

I realize most companies will not have this large of a course catalog, but with companies that do, this is what we would call a "critical" or "game-ending" issue. And from what I can see this issue is 5 years old (according to other's posts).

We appreciate your given solutions, but as of right now they just aren't conducive to a large training department.

Wow Cameron, it sounds like you've been through the ringer to no avail.  As you mentioned, there have been a couple of other folks in this thread who've also found that the save-close-reopen-save trick didn't work for them.

The sticking point has been that we haven't been able to reproduce this behavior internally, and I can't see a record of where someone was able to share a file with us that exhibited these symptoms.

I understand you'd also rather not share your file, but since it's the best way for us to demonstrate the problem and document a defect, we'd happily accept a .story project shared here privately if you change your mind.

Thanks for that, Cameron.  The red exclamation point icon overlay is a little unexpected.  Is there a backup service monitoring your files?

You also mentioned that you are working out of a repository.  Does this mean that you are working from a network drive?  Does the problem persist if you try the save-close-reopen-save trick on your local hard drive?

I also wanted to share a link to our Trust Center, in case that might help with compliance concerns.  We have a mutual NDA that can be signed privately if you like.

Hi Justin. That exclamation point icon is just a TortoiseSVN marker saying the file is in a conflicted state (changed based on file size) . All the files are on local SSD's, and when we want to commit them to a network drive, we perform a separate upload. There is no network drive we are working off of or real-time syncing service being used. So when I say repository, its just files marked locally that we upload 1-3 times daily.

I will hand your white-paper, Security policies and NDA to our export compliance team, but without confirming citizenship of everyone who has access to where the files are stored, I doubt we will be able to send you any data. But, I will run it by them and see what they say.

This issue of Storyline (3/360) secretly keeping every deleted object and bloating the file size is difficult to deal with. It affects delivery quality (download speed). Working around it by carefully cropping files outside Storyline is time-consuming and annoying. Please develop an auto-purge of deleted objects at file save.  

Hi Tennille, 

Were you able to try the save-close-reopen-save trick on your local hard drive? I know that's what a few other folks have done to make sure all those assets were fully purged before the final save and publish.