Storyline Update Issue: Screen Recordings Play from Slide Start Instead of Timeline Position

I’m running into a significant issue after updating Articulate Storyline 360, and I wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this behavior or found a reliable workaround.

We have multiple Storyline projects that use screen recordings in View Mode. In the previous version of Storyline, the screen recording playback followed the placement of the recording on the slide timeline. For example, if the screen recording was positioned to begin at a certain point in the timeline, it would play from that timeline position as expected.

After updating Storyline, these same slides now appear to automatically start the screen recording from the beginning of the slide, regardless of where the recording is positioned on the timeline. This has caused our audio, captions, and screen actions to become out of sync.

This is not just happening in timeline preview. The issue is also present in the published output, which makes it much more concerning.

I have already submitted this issue to Articulate Support, and they were able to replicate the behavior. It has been logged as a possible software bug. The current workaround provided was to roll back to Storyline 360 Update 117.

At this point, I’m trying to determine the fastest and most reliable way to resolve the issue without simply waiting for a future software update. We are preparing to publish approximately 20 Storyline projects into one LMS course for about 6,000 students, so rebuilding every affected slide manually would be a major lift.

Has anyone found a practical workaround for this?

Specifically, I’m trying to determine:

1. Can the screen recording be prevented from automatically playing at the start of the slide?
2. Is there a way to start or control the screen recording with a trigger instead of relying on the timeline?
3. Is there a fast way to recreate the original timing behavior from the previous version of Storyline?
4. Has anyone had success replacing the screen recording object with a video file, trimming it, or using layers/triggers to replicate the original timing?
5. Is rolling back to Update 117 currently the only reliable option for projects that depend heavily on timeline-based screen recordings?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated 😃, especially from anyone who has already had to fix published projects affected by this issue. I’m trying to identify the least risky and fastest path forward while preserving the original timing, audio sync, captions, and learner interactions.