Audio won't play in Articulate Review

Dec 04, 2017

Hi,

I've created a course in Articulate 360, when I played the publish copy everything was fine. I sent it for a customer review, and the sound is not there. I published again, and tried again and still no sound. I also tried going into my tray and check the mute on speakers and everything seems fine

93 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi all,

For those of you who have run into issues with your audio (or videos) playing at the start of the course in Chrome, please make sure you're using the latest version of Storyline 360 (or Storyline 3) as we've released an update for both to support the newest behavior of Chrome 66 to prevent autoplay of media. 

The changes that you'll see across hosting platforms when viewing Chrome content is that media may not play at all if it's on the first slide or not initiated by the user. The latest Storyline updates implemented a fix for this where learners may see a play button when they launch your course in Chrome 66+ if the first slide has audio. Clicking the play button allows the audio to play as expected.

After a while, learners may stop seeing the play button as Chrome's Media Engagement Index (MEI) learns that they allowed audio to play on previous visits to the same site. When that happens, audio will automatically play as it did in earlier versions of Chrome.

Another option is to not include media which is set to start automatically on the first slide. In this setup, a user would view and interact with the first slide (i.e. clicking next button) and Chrome will recognize that as the users choice to have media play throughout the remainder of the course.

If you have any other questions or concerns about this we're happy to help and offer clarifications! It may be a bit easier to test your courses and share that insight one on one, so please reach out to our Support team here. You can include a link to this forum discussion to get the ball rolling too. 

Katrina Frigeri

I'm having the same problem - not all reviewers can hear the audio in Articulate Review for Storyline courses when using Google Chrome. It seems like the audio takes a while to load fully in Chrome. If the reviewer waits a few minutes and refreshes a few times, the audio eventually works (in Chrome). In Internet Explorer and Fire Fox, it seems to work immediately without issue. 

Alyssa Gomez

Hi Katrina and Edward,

Can you double-check that the course was published to Articulate Review using the latest update of Storyline 360?  Simply click the Help tab, then click About Storyline. You should see 3.15.15581.0 in the bottom-right corner. 

If the course was published with the latest update and you're still having audio problems in Chrome, can you please share the Articulate Review link with me? If you'd rather keep it private, send it here. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sara,

Are you using the latest update of Presenter 360? There was a change with Chrome's playback of media if it's set to autoplay on the first slide, so that is impacting all Articulate courses even hosted in Review. You should see a play button on the first screen and once you've selected to play the media it should continue normally throughout the course. 

If you're using the latest update of Articulate 360, and it's still not behaving as expected in Review can you share a link to your course so that we can test it? 

Jenny McClintock

An Articulate tech rep instructed me to update my version of Articulate and then re-publish my course. So far, it has worked for me.

One difference: When my course loads on the Articulate Review site, you have to click on a large PLAY button to begin the course. In the previous version of Articulate, the course auto started after it loaded.

 

Sara Lulloff

Hi Ashley,

When you say that the change to Chrome's playback of media is impacting all Articulate courses, do you literally mean even the final versions we've published out as SCORM and loaded to our LMS aren't going to play audio or media? Or is this just an issue with the Articulate Review tool?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sara,

Yes, it would impact all courses that start with media set to automatically play on the first slide. If you have media starting later in the course after the user has interacted with the content there should be any issues with the playback. 

The play button that you're seeing (in Review or your LMS) is part of the change we had to make in Articulate 360 to accommodate the Chrome 66 updates to autoplay. That user interaction is what the browser needs in order to play the audio or video. If your courses have a required user interaction on the first slide and no media, you may not need to republish to have the media autoplay.

We're also working on a content updater, and we'll let you know as soon as that is ready (no ETA has been determined yet!).

Joe Candido

Yes! That's exactly what is required. I'm in the same boat as you and asked the same question last week. However, it looks like Chrome is reverting the settings with release "Chrome 70" because of complaints from the field. This is a temporary reversal until October to give developers more time to change their software. In the mean time Articulate has announced they are creating a "bulk fix tool" that can be run on a batch of zip files to correct the problem. The tool will eliminate the need to republish but the modules still must be reloaded on the LMS.  I haven't seen a release date for the tool.