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eric22762274
eric22762274
Participant
September 14, 2017
Question

Captivate has stopped working on website! Help?

  • September 14, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 265 views

Hi guys,

I have no idea why but all of a sudden no one can see our captivate activities. They were working at last check, and we've done no significant changes to the site in the past few days.

I have the captivate elements embedded within an iframe and hooked this up with LearnDash and the Captivate LD progression plugin so when a user completes the activity it progresses them through the course. Captivate has been working to date on all devices (desktop, tablet and mobile).

After toying around with the site and my settings, the only thing that has made them show up for me is by enabling flash on my browser. But that doesn't solve the issue on tablet.

Why would it be that I all of a sudden needed to enable flash (when I haven't needed to before)? And is there a fix to make captivate work again on all devices?

I have two files that do work on desktop (once I enabled flash): One is a html and another htm. To date we've used the .htm file without any issues:

Topic 1_25June.htm

multiscreen.html

Nothing works on tablet/mobile.

We have paying customers stuck half way through their course, unable to continue because the elements simply don't load so ANY help would be greatly appreciated here!

Thanks,

Eric

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    RodWard
    Community Expert
    RodWardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 15, 2017

    I would normally say your users that are not seeing content have all updated their browsers and now Flash Player is disabled (this is now very common practice by browser makers).  But since you say this issue applies to ALL of your users, even the ones on mobile devices, it then sounds more like the issue must be on your server.

    You're going to need more files on the server than just the Topic 1_25June.htm and multiscreen.html to play a course.  Have you checked whether or not there has been some issue, update or change on your LMS server that has been done without your knowledge?

    The multiscreen.html file checks to see whether the browser being used to view the content is on a mobile device and if it is, then it serves the HTML5 version of the course.  If it's not a mobile browser then it redirects to the HTM/SWF version of the course. 

    This approach with dual-publishing has an inherent flaw because it means the users on desktop browsers will ONLY ever have the opportunity to view the HTM/SWF content.  If for any reason their ability to view SWF is terminated (e.g. because the organisation just performed a browser update that turned off Flash Player in their browsers), then they're stuck.  Even if their desktop browsers happen to be HTML5 compliant, with dual publishing and the multiscreen.html file as a barrier, they'll never see the HTML5.

    Almost all browsers being used now on desktops would be HTML5 compliant.  There's really no valid need anymore to be using the HTM/SWF content.  Just go with HTML5 only.

    Erik Lord
    Erik Lord
    Inspiring
    September 14, 2017

    If all your pieces are published with multiscreen.html, then your projects are published as both Flash and as HTML.

    The multiscreen.html does some sort of 'check' of the device or screensize then shows either the Flash version or the HTML version.

    Something may have changed where that multiscreen file is no longer showing the HTML version for some reason and is instead showing the Flash version.

    Instead of trying to figure out what that is, the 'real' solution is to NOT publish your pieces as Flash and HTML.

    Publish as HTML *only*. That will work on all devices, desktop and tablet.

    I don't know what happened in your environments where the multiscreen seemed to stop working properly - browser upgrades, system upgrades, device changes, etc. However, all browsers are locking out Flash players by default now, so these pieces NEED to be changed to not serve a Flash version AT ALL...or you still keep having this issue in the future.

    Find your source files, republish as HTML only, replace the existing pieces on the server, and you should be ok.

    Unfortunately any user progress will likely be lost, but that's ok, right? Cause they can't complete them anyway.

    (btw, the 'flash is dying, browsers are blocking it' thing has been around for over a year. Gotta stay on top of that sorta thing )

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