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eanthony
Participant
February 12, 2008
Question

Memory spiking in Captivate 3 when opening property dialogs

  • February 12, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 639 views
I have run into a very disturbing problem with Captivate 3. I try to open the properties dialog of one of the objects and the memory usage (as seen through windows Task manager - using xp) climbs to over 250 megabytes! and you are effectively locked you out of all properties dialogs. The memory spike remains at this peak until you exit captivate.
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2 replies

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eanthonyAuthor
Participant
March 12, 2008
The problem seemed to correct itself once I created new versions of the files subsequent to defragmenting my hard drive. I think the hard drive issue was the real culprit but I also think creating a new file version of a project every so often (maybe every few days if you're hitting the same file regularly) helps overall performance a great deal.
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Anonymous
March 14, 2008
The size and disk churning issue was there in Captivate2. I have found that using certain "templates" will cause this to happen when I import certain slides like my cover slide and End slides. I am not sure why a Captivate file would get large to begin with, but it is clear to me that the use of WAV files for recording in Captivate is a huge waste of resources and space. My projects without sound are all a reasonable size. My projects wirh few screen snaps or reuable backgrounds and then Captivate captions are also small in size.

There is a bug, memory leak or other problem with importing certain templates and I have essentially stopped doing that. Some of the templates found on the Captivate exchenge site are guilty of causing the file bloat as well.

PLEASE contact the BUG report site at Adobe and vent your findings there. They need to fix these OLD-OLD-OLD bugs before adding more features.

Data storage techniques in Captivate need a once-over and there should be a compression routine that is automatic, every time the file changes by 10% (I do this in my software applications and the users never know it, but then again, I never get complaints like these).

But my guess on your file is that an import of resources or sound recordings are causing your file size to be so large. You could try to find the offending slides, but resources such as captions and other embedded objects could still be the problem. The resources pane (right side of the screen) has a select all unused items button and then a delete option. But notice that there is no Compress space option. They need to fix their storage technology and it will start with complaints to the Bug Page.

Finally, my biggest complaint about the file size is the lack of a Patch for this. This is ANCIENT news in Captivate. It should be Patched. In fact, a patch program in Captivate does not exist and you should complain about that too. Quarterly patches are normal in the software industry. There are things that cannot be resolved on a web-board or with a call to tech support. Come on Adobe - Wake Up, this bug is as old as they come!

Best of luck in getting this under control before the next release.

Joe C.
RoboWizard
RoboWizard
Inspiring
February 12, 2008
Hi eanthony

How long has Captivate been open at the time? Additionally, how large is your project? Both from a 'number of pixels' as well as a 'number of slides' perspective.

I ask about how long Captivate has been open, because it has an unlimited number of undo levels. As a result of that, it's storing history somewhere. Probably in temporary files. I always advise folks that if you are using Captivate intensively all day long, it's probably a good idea to restart it around lunchtime, just to clear out the temporary files.

The project size questions relate directly to resource usage on the local PC.

Cheers... Rick
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eanthonyAuthor
Participant
February 12, 2008
I've tried rebooting. The project size is in the 50 megabyte range which has never been a problem before. I'll try a complete shutdown and see what happens. I appreciate the response.
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