Forum Discussion

KeithKemsley's avatar
KeithKemsley
Community Member
4 years ago

Timer, Changed Behavior Post-Update

Hello All!

I believe the timer feature has changed behavior based on a Storyline update. We have a 2 hour timer set for about 20 exams built within Storyline. Historically, when a person moved away from the exam page (to look at the Internet or other sources) the timer would keep running in the background. Now, when a person leaves the page, the timer pauses. We would like to have the timer keep running in the background.

The last published exam working properly in the background is 12/15/2020. All the exams we have published since that time pause the timer. 

Is anyone experiencing the same thing? Any thoughts on how to get the timer to run in the background? 

Thanks in advance! 

  • sabrmanz's avatar
    sabrmanz
    Community Member

    Hello Lauren,

    Thank you for the heads up.
    I've made a few tests and the bug that speeds up the timer is fixed, but when I refresh the browsers page or leave the course, the timer still starts over again.

    • LaurenDuvall's avatar
      LaurenDuvall
      Staff

      Hi Sabrina!

      I see that you're working with my teammate, Mcgem, on troubleshooting the issue where the timer starts over again when refreshing the browser window. We'll continue working with you directly in your case. 

  • ZoeDimopoulou's avatar
    ZoeDimopoulou
    Community Member

    Hello, are there any news on the matter with the timer that starts over again when you refresh the browsers page or leave the course ?

    I m facing the exact same matter as i m building monthly quizzes in which the time is an important parameter for the validity of quiz results.

    Can you get back at me please? 

    Thank you in advance

  • Hi, everyone,

    I have great news to share!

    We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 60, we've included important fixes and new features.

    One of the fixes we've included is:

    Quiz timers reset to zero seconds when refreshing the browser tab or exiting and resuming the course.

    To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.

    Please let us know if you have any questions by posting here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly. 

  • sabrmanz's avatar
    sabrmanz
    Community Member

    Hi everyone,

    Great news! I've made a few tests and so far so good; no problems found. My team will continue testing the quiz timer and if we find any trouble, I'll get back here.

    Now, during the time the quiz timer feature wasn't working I've tried to make a quiz timer in JavaScript, it didnt't work 100% but it was possible to make a few "tricks" as:

    • give the learner a sound and image alert when the time was close to end.
      Example: We had a quiz timer with 2 hours, if the learner reaches 1 hour and 50 minutes without finishing the quiz, we showed a slide layer with sound saying "you have only 10 minutes left", the learner presses OK in this slide layer and continue the quiz.
      My question is, is there any way to reference to the native quiz timer from Storyline and create something like this?

    If no, here is a suggestion: add this feature in the quiz timer configurations, I'm sure a lot of users will benefit from this.

    To illustrate my example I'll add my .story file in this topic, you can see the JS code and the triggers i've used in the slide master from any question.

    This question was made in support case #02970213 as well, but I wanted to bring here so if anyone have this doubt too.