URGENT: Systematic Memory Leak & DOM Node Explosion - Multiple Projects Affected

Hello Articulate Support & Community,

I am reporting a critical, project-breaking performance issue that is now affecting multiple recent modules that causes browser crashes, particularly on mobile devices. This is an urgent matter as our clients are experiencing frequent crashes, particularly on mobile devices, and our production is at a standstill.

I have already opened a technical support case (# 01272139) regarding this, but I have not received a resolution yet. I am providing full technical data here to expedite a fix.

The Issue: In our latest builds using the most recent version of Storyline 360, we are seeing a massive, uncontrollable accumulation of resources that the engine fails to purge:

• DOM Nodes: Over 70,000 nodes for a simple 11-slide project.
• JS Heap Size: Reaches 2.4 GB rapidly, leading to "Out of Memory" crashes.
• CPU Usage: Constant saturation at 99.4%, even when the slide is idle.
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• Cross-Environment Testing: We have verified that this behavior is NOT related to a specific hosting platform. The same leak occurs across:

• Articulate Review 360.
• LMS environments (SCORM 1.2 and 2004).
• Local standalone web server (No LMS/No SCORM).

The Issue: The Storyline runtime appears unable to perform effective Garbage Collection. Even though I am not using complex media, the DOM tree continues to grow indefinitely. It seems the engine is "stacking" every object from previous slides without ever purging them from the browser's memory.

Troubleshooting Steps Taken: To isolate the cause, I have stripped the project down to its bare essentials:

1. Slide Master: Completely deleted the Slide Master for testing—the leak persists.
2. Slide/Layer Properties: Every slide and layer is set to "Reset to initial state".
3. Animations/Media: Removed all videos, Move Paths, and Emphasis Effects.
4. New Project: Imported slides into a brand-new .story file—no change.
5. Logic: Replaced Project.Progress with custom JS to reduce CPU overhead.

Conclusion: This appears to be a systemic failure in the Modern Player's Garbage Collection mechanism in recent builds. Since this is affecting multiple projects, we suspect a regression in how the engine handles object destruction.

I am ready to provide the .story file immediately to any staff member who can investigate this. Our clients are extremely dissatisfied, and we need an urgent technical review.

Technical Context:

• Storyline 360 Version: Latest Build (January 2026).
• Player: Modern Player.
• Browser: Chrome, Edge, and Firefox (All show the same 70k node retention).

Thank you for your immediate attention to this case.