Can this be avoided?

Yes. When you have media on the first slide, the browser creates the play button which requires user activation. There are a couple of ways to fix this:

• Create a first slide that serves as a gate and auto advances to the second slide.
• In the player, create a cover screen. You'll still get the play button, but the cover image looks better than the black emptiness.

Here's a tutorial.

Thankyou for time and assistance. Weilen dank.

You are a very cool man (Kuhlmann)  Like youve never heard that one right?  :)  

Seen your name around for years (decades?).. hope all is going well with you sir.

:)

Hopefully the video helps.

This issue has caused serious accessibility issues to learners with visual impairments. I watched a person try for 10 minutes before they eventually had to use a mouse and randomly click around the screen before they found the play button.

I found this fix worked. https://www.swiftelearningservices.com/remove-play-button-articulate-storyline-360/

The swift learning process is the same as the one listed above. As far as accessibility, it seems the screen reader should jump to the play button generated by the browser which in turn activate the course. Is that not the case?

Hi Tom,

It doesn't jump automatically. The company I work for has been doing a lot of accessibility testing with users with disabilities and this was a major issue. 

That said it only seems to only be an issue in Review 360 not when the course is deployed in an LMS. 

Hello! This fix does not seem to be responsive. It only works for the desktop viewpoint. Is there a way to replace the black start screen in the tablet and mobile viewpoints?

Hello Marianne, 

Have you tried adding a cover photo to your course to replace the default background with a custom image? Here's where you can add a cover photo for your course: 

You can check out this article to learn more about using cover photos for your course. 

Let me know if this works for you!

Thanks, Joe! I tried the cover photo. The black screen still appears for a moment before the photo displays, but it's better than before.

Is there a way to adjust the display properties? It would be great if we could make the photo full screen to hide the black borders. Customizing or hiding the player button would also be a nice enhancement.

I attached an example that shows the black borders. They show in all viewpoints.

Hi Marianne, 

The player adjusts the way content is shown to best fit the resolution of the device being used to view your course, so you'll want to make sure that your cover photo matches the resolution of the devices that will most be used to view your course as much as possible. 

There isn't a way to hide the player button in the settings, but this sounds like a great feature to have. I’ll be happy to pass your thoughts on to our product team, but you can also feel free to detail them more through a feature request! 

Hi, Joe, 

I tried using an image from the Content Library. It sounds as though I need to test a custom image in various sizes and resolutions.

Thank you for the information, 

Marianne

I also have this issue. I had already played David A's youtube video showing how to get around it. The known cause/explanation doesn't seem to match up for me because my audio and video are not on the first slide. The second slide has an mp4/video introduction. So not understanding why  my first non-interactive slide still produces the black screen. Unlike what @Cary Glenn said below, this occurs in both A360 review and also in the LMS.

Hi Cheryl!

Happy to jump in here!

Our development team is tracking a known issue that causes:

• Play button shows even if there is no media file on the first slide and there is closed caption

I've linked this discussion to the bug report so you can be notified as soon as a fix is in place. In the meantime, as a workaround, we suggest rolling back to a previous version of Storyline 360.

Thank you for your patience. Sorry if this has been slowing you down!

Hello Cheryl!

I am happy to share that Storyline 360 (Build 3.83.31444.0) includes the fix for the bug in the play button that Steven mentioned above!

All you need to do is update Storyline 360 in your Articulate 360 desktop app to take advantage of the newest bug fixes and features!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I just launched a new course and was wondering why it looked that way on screen.

Thanks for the tips and update!

I created a new Storyline 360 presentation as of Jan 15, 2024 that does not have any media on the 1st slide nor anywhere in the presentation and I'm getting the play button.  I saw a previous comment that the update in Dec 2023 fixed this bug however I'm have to report that it's not fixed.  Are there any additional recommendations on how to remove the 'Play' button when opening the resource without Media on the main slide?

Hello R Louthan, 

We're no longer seeing the Play button issue being reported by other users so there's a chance that something else on your first slide might be making the Play button appear. 

Would you be willing to share a copy of your Storyline 360 project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at the first slide in your course? We'll delete it when we're done testing!