Forum Discussion
Storyline publish file deleted files out of computer folder of same name
I have a project file on my computer titled "Project 1" (not the real project name, just for example purposes). When I published the Storyline file for the LMS, I did not get a warning that there was already a folder with the same name on my computer that would have given me any indication there was a problem. However, when I went to the "Project 1" folder on my computer, most of my files are missing from that folder and have been replaced with the LMS output files, despite the fact that the files were categorized in folders with names different from the output files.
I've worked in Storyline for 10 years and have never had this happen. When I try to revert to a previous version of the folder, it says there are no previous versions.
Has anyone had this happen, and if so, did you find a way to recover the lost files???
16 Replies
I just experienced the same issue. I had 10+ versions of my storyline file plus source documents saved in a local folder. When I published the file it wrote over this folder and I lost all saved files aside from my current storyline file. Brutal. Of course this is the one project where I haven't been backing up my local files to the cloud. Wild that there is no alert when attempting to publish to a folder of the same name.
Hi woowootootoo,
Thanks for sharing what happened. I'm really sorry to hear you lost your project files. I can understand how frustrating that would be, especially after having multiple Storyline file versions and source documents saved in the same folder.
I'd like our Support Engineers to take a closer look at your publishing workflow to better understand what happened and determine whether there are any recovery options available. I've opened a support case for you, and someone from the team will reach out shortly to gather a few additional details.
In the meantime, if you haven't already, I recommend avoiding any further changes to that folder until the team has had a chance to review the situation, as that may help preserve any potential recovery options.
Hi Eric,
Thank you for opening a support case and connecting me with a customer support agent.
It does concern me that this thread documents several users experiencing the same issue over the past three years.
Software should not silently delete unrelated documents, previous file versions, and subfolders without warning. At minimum, Storyline should clearly warn users that publishing will permanently replace the folder's contents.
The risk is compounded by Articulate's recommendation to work and publish locally.
I appreciate support looking into my case, but I hope the team will also address the need for additional safeguards.
Just had this occur to me -- my working folder containing the .story file and media had the same name as the SCORM output and were completely overwritten with no warning.
If this is 'intended behaviour' then that is frankly insane. No software should overwrite existing files without telling you first.
Thank you for the feedback. This however is the problem and Articulate should fix the issue by retaining the ouput folder. I resolved the issue by creating a publish folder however developer processes should not have to change due to a bad update. Fix the issue do not force users to change their work flow/process.
As well, this should be flagged very clearly in some form of update alert. I am sure I am not the only developer that wasted significant time trying to figure out the issue, and then have to recreate all assets from a project. Luck for me I back up regularly to an external drive. other I am sure are not so lucky!
this problem started with SL 3.70
before SL 3.70 the (auto deleting) publish folder was
- Folder + Title + " - Storyline output/" 🡄 the name of the folder clear for everyone
now it's
- Folder + Title
so the problem can occur much more easily if you are not paying attention
but there is a simple workaround, create 2 folder on your data drive
- storyline-source/ ...
- storyline-output/ ... (only for publish !)
put all your sources, ... in the first folder and publish always to the second folder
I saw no indication that anything was going to be over written.
Also curious at what point, if any, storyline will give an error? Can I delete software applications or system default folders by exporting?? Seems like it would be easy to minimally have a check that the folder it's deleting is an existing export folder and if not have some sort of indication that you might be making a mistake.
No offense to anyone but I am not new to Storyline. I have been publishing in the same way since Storyline came out. I do know how it works as I have developed hundreds of courses and published for LMSs in SCORM 2004, SCORM 1.2 and AICC, along with publishing for WEB and frankly any other way to publish.
This is the first time I have seen this behaviour and it is startling! In know way should authoring software overwrite/erase its own assets.
There is a glitch somewhere and I will try to recreate it and document my exact steps so that I solution can be found. I will also change my process to avoid this happening in the future but will have to have my other developers follow suit moving forward as we cannot afford the extra time necessary to rebuild the folder structure!
There should still be a fail safe. I can't save a pdf with the same name with out a pop-up if I want to replace the existing file! Glad there are at least temp files to restore the storyline file, but there should be some recognition that it's not replacing an export folder or that it lives in that folder.
if you publish, the first action of storyline is to complete delete the destination folder
storyline uses as destination folder a combination of "Folder" + "Title"
in this example "D:\Projekte_P4\Storyline\my title of the course is very very\" *
if the folder exist, all files in this folder are deleted - regardless of whether they are files from storyline or another program
* storyline 3.78 only allows 8 words for the publish folder
This just happened to me too. My project folder and storyline export have the same name. Exporting wrote over the project folder so now all I have is the last version's export. I tried to quickly save-as the storyline file and it crashed. It wrote over several sub-folders, itself (i.e., storyline file), PDF documents, Word documents, folder short cuts, etc. How is this possible with no error!! It deleted it's own source file while exporting itself!
