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A
Atrivision
Participating Frequently
March 3, 2009
Question

Cp4: with bitmap background?

  • March 3, 2009
  • 10 replies
  • 2733 views
Hello,

We have a difficulty in our project when we add/change the background of the slides. Our project is meant as a E-learning course for the use of software. So far we have over a 100 slides and almost every slide has a different background (a screenshot of the screen that's being discussed on that slide). We use SnagIt to make and save those screenshots. When we started the project we saved them as jpg's but this gave problems in Cp4 (we lost quality and got other colors). So we tried other formats, and bitmap worked fine. So we save the screenshots as bitmap and add them in Cp4 as background.
Doing this 5 or more times in a row causes the Cp4 to stop responding properly: it doesn't save the project and you can't quit Cp4 normally. So your work is lost, resulting in a 'End Process' through the Taskmanager.

So it's pretty serious. I tried to see what was causing this (maybe something outside Cp4). All I noticed was that Captivate.exe was using over 1,2 Gigabyte of memory. Which is rather much. But then the laptop isn't a push-over either with 3Gb of RAM.
The size of the projectfile was about 250Mb, so we tried the trick proposed to a Cp3 user: copy all the slides and paste them in a new project. This reduced the size of the project dramatically, but it didn't solve this problem.
And it happened again just now, and the memory usage of captivate.exe was normal.

Any suggestions or is this a bug?

Regards,
Chris

EDIT 9:10AM
When I tried to close Captivate with the taskmanager it takes a few minutes before Cp is actually ended. In that time I check the memory and noticed Captivate.exe suddenly occupied 1,6Gb of memory!! So it seems to be a memory issue...
This topic has been closed for replies.

10 replies

A
AtrivisionAuthor
Participating Frequently
May 27, 2009

Hi folks,

Just to inform you on this Bug:

Adobe techs have been working on a fix for the memory issue raised in this topic.

They send me an early release for testing purposes.

I've tested the fix yesterday and it seems to work.

Hopefully they will release the official patch/update/fix publicly in short notice

Cheers,

Chris

A
AtrivisionAuthor
Participating Frequently
March 19, 2009
Hey Guys,

I'm not sure, but it sounds like the whole merging and quality thing has nothing to do with actual problem raised in this topic...

No offense :p
Chris
S
Scout's Mom
Inspiring
March 19, 2009
Kristen,
Hmm. I've never had a resolution problem when merging. In fact, the resolution seems better than when the image is floating there. I do set my screen Quality to High, which ups the file size some, but with merging and files of about 30 slides each, file size is still acceptable (eg, 21 MB C3 file and 1.5 MB swf published file).

I'm with you, about full motion capturing. I always turn it off and use it only in dire emergencies (such as showing dragging). When the finished piece goes from "regular" to full-motiion, I can see a substantial color shift and the screen seems to shrink about a pixel in each direction.
K
Kristen2810
Known Participant
March 19, 2009
quote:
Originally posted by: Scout's mom
In fact, the resolution seems better than when the image is floating there.


That's what I do, I let it float and lock the layer so that it has the same effect as a merged image, but it's not really merged. Maybe it's just me, but I noticed it most with the images that had text in them when I merged the screen shots. It was always blurry even when setting the slides to High Quality.

S
Scout's Mom
Inspiring
March 18, 2009
All--Is there any reason you can't "Merge into Background"? You can use your bitmaps and probably reduce your file size.

And I'm with Kerry: I design my projects so I can shoot for about 30 slides per project-file. Much more manageable.
K
Kristen2810
Known Participant
March 19, 2009
Leslie,

I have never merged my images into the background. The main reason for that is because most of my images are screen shots that take up the entire screen and when I used Cap. 3, I noticed that images would lose some resolution after mergining them. So, instead of merging, I would place the images onto the slide and lock the layer.

I agree, I also keep my projects short and if it's longer than about 40-50 slides then I create a second module and link them together. However, I must add that I never use the video capturing feature because that does increase the file size quite a bit and it's not easy to edit that way.

- Kristen
K
Kristen2810
Known Participant
March 17, 2009
Good to know this. I also work with .bmp files and do a lot of copying and pasting. I just upgraded to Cap. 4 today. If anyone comes across a solution, please post it here.
O
ORCapUser
Participating Frequently
March 12, 2009
Hello-

I too am having the same issue experienced in this thread. Also, all of my co-workers, 6+ people, are as well. We recently (3 weeks ago) upgraded to Captivate 4 from Captivate 3.

We've tested this on large feels (80 slides) and small files (10 slides or less) and the outcome is the same. Captivate freezes up after copying/pasting about three times. I performed this same sequence in Captivate 3 for over a year with no adverse effects. This is definitely related to Captivate 4.

The process goes like this. I am usually scrubbing data on a slide background, so I grab a section of a screen with SnagIt. I then copy/paste the image from SnagIt and onto a slide in Captivate. This works 2-3 times, then Captivate completely slows to a crawl and I must reboot my computer. Captive will not allow you to save. I also experience issues after copy/paste a background from one slide to another within the same Captivate file.

The memory usage spikes to about 1.5 GB for Captivate after the paste and my computer quits responding.

The only work around I have so far is:
1. Be sure to save before doing a copy/paste (as others have stated, once Captivate dies, you cannot save your file)
2. Save your screen shots as images, then manually insert them via the Insert menu. (It's slower, but faster than rebooting)

Please let us know if Adobe comes out with a fix for this issue.

-Tim
A
Anonymous
March 17, 2009
It definately seems like a memory issue and it's causing all kinds of erratic behavior. After several background pastes I copied a text caption from one slide to the next, then opened it to change text and select a new caption style. I selected my new caption style, then saved out. Cap4 then changed the font from "ariel" to "system" from "regular" to "bold", changed the font size, and centered the text that was left aligned before. From this point I could not correct anything in a text box and had to close Cap4.

After opening Cap4, behavior returned to normal - for the next few minutes - until Cap4 choked again. This time, pressing the Pause key to pause the recording turned into the End command. I had been using the pause/resume several times prior to this behavior change. Closing/reopening Cap4 fixed the issue.

It seems like I can only edit 3 or 4 slides in Cap4 and then have to close the program and re-open it. This memory issue is hugely impacting my development time.
A
AtrivisionAuthor
Participating Frequently
March 18, 2009
@ pdxsme: I'm not sure if your issues are related to this topic. At least I don't recognize that behavior of Cp4.

So far I found these actions the best way to minimize the problems:

- Clear your library of unused images (I have seen an instruction somewhere ....)
- Use PNG's or other smaller formats instead of BMP's.
- If your project tends to get stuck pretty quickly (like after 3 or 4 inserted backgrounds), consider copying all the slides and paste them in a new project.

I have been in contact with Adobe and they are working on it, however it may take a while before that results in a public fix...

Hope this helps!

Cheers!
Chris
Atrivision BV
A
AtrivisionAuthor
Participating Frequently
March 4, 2009
Hi Guys,

Here is an update regarding this issue.
I've been testing to see if this problem also would occur on a different workstation. And unfortunately it does. It took a while before it occured though.

It looks like with certain conditions Cp4 is not releasing the memory properly. The issue is only appearing in our project file, although it has been copied several times to make sure it is not the file being corrupt. I think it has more to do with the project size (100+ slides) and the fact we started the project with the use of bmp's. With png's it takes longer to mess up Captivate.

Also, the 'messing up' is more clear: Captivate ceases to operate as it should. You cannot save your project or exit with saving. You can't edit the slides anymore. But you can still open the preferences and perform some other actions. If you quit without saving you don't need the taskmanager either.

Is there a support contact reading the forum to whom I can send the project file for analyses? Or are there other helpful suggestions?

Cheers,
Chris
A
Anonymous
March 4, 2009
Hi there,

It sounds to me that you Captivate .dat file might have become corrupted. I have this seen this sort of behavior quite a lot in Adobe Captivate 4. I would suggest that you try deleting the .dat file (on both machines) The .dat file can be located via the following path.

C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Captivate

Remove the .dat file from this locate and restart Captivate. If this doesn't solve the problem, then please report this issue to the Adobe Captivate team.

Adobe Captivate Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Best - Mark
A
AtrivisionAuthor
Participating Frequently
March 4, 2009
Hi Mark,

thanx for the tip. I've already tried that though. I even removed al the preference files as per instructions which I found here. I did a complete re-install as well.
I think I'm going to opt for the bug report.

Thanx anyway!

Chris
KerryWilson
KerryWilson
Inspiring
March 3, 2009
100 slides is a lot of slides for Captivate. Depending on the complexity of the slides (audio, video and lots of "things" happening), this might be the problem.

Have you tried breaking them up into smaller projects?

I try to have no more than 60 slides, however I have no audio on my projects and minimal to no full motion recordings.

But having another read of your message.. the project is only 5 MB.... hmmmmm.

C
commando_dhruv
Participating Frequently
March 4, 2009
Hi,
Captivate 4 has a pretty good support for big projects. I have seen projects with 150+ slides and of 150Mb+ size working pretty smoothly.

What are the dimension of the project ? CP4 has lots of changes wrt to image importing and resizing.
You can try to keep the dimensions of the project same or greater than those of the images being added as backgrounds.

If the problem persists you might want to go with what Kerry says.

Cheers!!
A
AtrivisionAuthor
Participating Frequently
March 3, 2009
Hi Commando,

1) when we used the bitmaps it was 2,5MB each. We changed to working with PNG's to see if that would make it difference, so far it doesn't. The PNG's are about 50kB...

2) The project = *.cp? Then it's about 5 Mb

3) I can change that to: importing 5(or so) images (png or bmp) as background 'hangs' Cp4. Quotes 'cause it's not totally hanging, Cp4 seems to work, but is not responding to the buttons anymore.

Cheers,
Chris
C
commando_dhruv
Participating Frequently
March 3, 2009
Hi Atrivision,

Have a few questions :-

1) What is the size of each individual Image ?

2) What is the size of the project ?

3) "Doing this 5 or more times in a row causes the Cp4 to stop responding properly"
Do you mean that adding 5 bitmaps as background hangs Captivate4 ?

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