Hi. I've been struggling with 2 videos built by a vendor that need to be included in our LMS. I created a Storyline 360 module with both videos added. They are each 30 min in length (I know that's not ideal for a number of reasons). The issue I'm having is with the videos freezing in random places. We decreased the size of the files to MP4s because the original MOVs were huge, but we're still having issues with random freezing. I'm wondering if it is browser related - so far, the people seeing this behavior were using Chrome. One thing the vendor brought up is the bitrate. Does anyone know if there is a maximum recommended bitrate? Thanks

Hi, This page refers to fixing videos that do not progressively stream/play properly.Might be worth a shot. https://articulate.com/support/article/mp4-movie-doesnt-begin-playing-until-it-has-fully-downloaded I hope that helps.Russ

After a lot of investigation here we think we may have isolated the problem. Our Checkpoint firewall may have been causing issues when we were publishing courses that caused the videos to pause/freeze in random spots. We had several people publish the same articulate file and the individuals that had checkpioint enstalled on their computer had issues while others did not. It seems to have fixed the problem for now. However, we still find that videos jump a little at the beginning when they are loading to play. Not sure if this could be something that Articulate can solve in the future to make the loading and initial play of videos smoother. Is anyone else experiencing this?

I'm glad that you were able to isolate the issue, Fern. I appreciate you popping back in with an update. We'd be happy to look at the video issue you are experiencing. Please share your project file with our support engineers here. It will be deleted when troubleshooting is complete.

After export I found that some videos were freezing in Chrome and Edge, but not Firefox. After setting the video compression from automatic to none, this has solved the issue. As mentioned in this thread, https://handbrake.fr/ is a great open source tool to use to minimize file size.

Hi, Leah. Welcome to the community! I'd be happy to work closely with you to find out why both videos are freezing. A few questions to help us narrow down the cause: What version of Chrome are you and your team using? An easy way to grab this detail is to go to http://supportally.com/ Is the Video Compression feature enabled or disabled on both MP4 videos? If it's turned off, Storyline will publish what's given with no maximum bitrate. If it's turned on, the maximum will vary per video since Storyline will handle the compression. Would you be able to share your .story file with me here? Feel free to add the project as a comment by using the Add Attachment button in your reply or send it privately via this link. I'll test in another LMS environment and let you know what I find! I'll be here!

Videos freezing randomly | Articulate

RussellEngoran
Community Member
4 years ago
I downloaded your story file and it was cutting the end for me too. Then I replaced the video with your mp4 and it worked. Sometimes video is just weird that way I guess. But glad you got it fixed!
- PamelaRoeper
  Community Member
  4 years ago
  Thank you, Russell. I was getting so frustrated. I replaced it numerous times. I even redid the slide from scratch. Nothing worked.
  
  The only thing that worked for me was going into Premiere Pro and re-encoding and re-rendering that little video. So, I am guessing that is where the issue was. Premiere always has its own gremlins to deal with. :-)
RussellEngoran
Community Member
4 years ago
Maybe "how" you replace it matters.

I used Edit Video > Replace Video, instead of deleting and re-adding.
- PamelaRoeper
  Community Member
  4 years ago
  No. I did try it that way as well (I am too lazy to have to adjust the position of things... so that is a feature I like to use). As a last ditch effort I did try a whole new slide. But the only thing that worked for me was to redo in premiere pro. Maybe if I would have had more patience it would have eventually worked, but I am always on unrealistic deadlines.
KrzysztofOstrow
Community Member
4 years ago
Hi,

My organization facing similar issues with freezing learning content published with LMS. We have tried numerous ways of having it solved by analyzing from perspective of prepared videos, damaged SCORM packages and issues with LMS itself - for now still progressing with LMS vendor to find possible reasons of such situation. We have observed that actually we got 2 main kind of issues: corrupted video files (usually damaged audio paths) and "SOMETHING" with LMS. Once we are able to solve issues with video itsefl by re-rendering videos again, we have no idea what can be wrong with LMS. We are sure that there is something wrong with our LMS, because during process of investigation we have ruled out browsers factor (we mainly testing on Chrome, but have tried on other ones as well, btw. IE perfecty dealing with corrupted video files, so "the force is strong with this old one"), we have tested same content which randomly freezing published with scorm cloud (not our LMS) and observed no issues, so the only guilty one is our LMS. Hope that further investigation will give some results and finally allow to publish longer videos content. Maybe some of you struggled with similar LMS related issues?
FernMcCracken
Community Member
3 years ago
We are experiencing the same issue. Videos imported into articulate Storyline 360 keeps freezing randomly. This occurs only when we publish in the LMS setting. We have ruled out that it is not an internet or LMS issue because this occurs when we publish the files locally to our desktop. Our videos are under 2 minutes long. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this issue I would greatly appreciate it.
- LaurenConnelly
  Staff
  3 years ago
  Hi Fern!
  
  We can definitely help troubleshoot this issue! If you import the videos into a new project, do they freeze there as well?
  
  It's hard to determine why the videos are freezing without seeing the .story file. Do you mind sharing that with us? You can either attach it to this public discussion or privately in a support case.
KathyWasson-bb7
Community Member
3 years ago
Following this closely, as we are having very similar issues. Does not seem to affect all users. Mostly in Chrome as far as we can tell. Re-rendering the video sometimes will fix.
- BeccaLevan
  Community Member
  3 years ago
  Thanks for following, Kathy!
  
  We'd be happy to help investigate and help determine what's causing your videos to freeze. Are you editing, saving, and publishing your project locally rather than a network drive?
  
  If possible, can you share one of the troublesome files with our team for testing purposes? We'll reach out with our findings soon after!
  
  Submit a case here.
TimClark
Community Member
3 years ago
Not sure if this has been mentioned.

I've been having on going issues with this freezing video bug and I'm not entirely sure its just a browser issue.

I wanted to see if the videos were freezing before being uploaded - so I published my course to LMS, then extracted the file to my desktop so that I can view all the video content that is in the course and found that the same videos would freeze in the in the extracted file even before I uploaded them to the LMS.

Videos can even freeze when uploaded to Review 360

I have also found that storyline will sometimes pick videos at random to freeze and sometimes videos that were fine in earlier exports would be freezing in later exports. Deleting the slide and reimporting the video doesnt seem to work.

I don't believe this is entirely due to file size either as I have larger videos that are fine whilst some smaller videos will freeze.

The only way I've been able to fix this issue my self is to rexport the my videos from Premiere Pro. As always saved to desktop, mp4, etc.

As we are moving more into video led learning, it would be great if this issue can be resolved. :)
JoseTansengco
Staff
3 years ago
Hi Tim,

Thanks for reaching out!

Since re-exporting your videos in Premiere Pro fixes the issue for you, there's a chance that the issue might be because of the encoding process being used by your video application. One way to test this is to re-encode any affected videos using a tool called Handbrake, and then testing to see if this fixes the issue. Here's a helpful video which shows how to use Handbrake to re-encode.

If you have any additional questions or clarifications, feel free to reach out to our support team here, and if you're willing to share a copy of your video file, we'll be glad to take a closer look at it for you!
- TimClark
  Community Member
  3 years ago
  Hi Joe, I really appreciate the quick reply!
  
  I have videos exported from Premiere that work perfectly fine and then one day won't export properly, I would also have videos given to me from another department, perhaps a Teams meeting screen record, which would also freeze.
  
  It might be worth also noting that the videos would play perfectly fine when I preview the slide/scene/course, but only corrupt when I export either to Review 360 or LMS.
  
  I've noticed there's a lot of different experiences in this 3 year old thread, hopefully a more global solution can be found. :-)