ActionScript Keyword error on publishing Captivate 9.

[warmstrong]

I am working on Captivate 9.02.437 64 bit version. I am working on a project build by my predecessor that utilizes a variety of advanced actions and  drag and drop object.

I believe the project was originally created in captivate 8 and is set to output to .swf. One of the issues I have run into on this project is when it was converted and amended in 2017 the project threw up this error in publishing. 

I searched the forums and found a number of possible suggestions. 

The first was to check the variable names against the action script names for potential conflicts. I went through every variable and created new ones as there was a potential conflict. I changed them all as  precaution and also went through each of the projects advanced actions and made the necessary changes in those to reflect the new variable names.

Below is a shot of the variables before and after.

I tried republishing the project and got the same actionscript keyword error.

I tried to preview the project and I get the actionscript keyword error. Interestingly I previewed the project in scormcloud and it ran perfectly which is somewhat confusing.

I then tried changing the Captivate ini file which is suggested solution for the same issue in captivate 6 question posted in the forums. Basically it said to add  "Use32BitJVMForPublish = 1" without quotes in the AdobeCaptivate.ini  file. Close and relaunch Captivate then republish the project.

I again tried republishing the project and got the same actionscript keyword error.

Is anyone else familiar with this type of error and have any possible alternative solutions?

I will say I have considered recreating this project in a new captivate project file but am reluctant to do that due to current time constraints. It currently it is not slated for a complete review until 2019. I have spent a couple of days working on this and would appreciate any insight you may have at finding a solution for this. 

Thanks for taking the time to explore this issue with me.

[warmstrong · Accepted solution]

Ok so I found one similar forum post from 2013 which suggested the user deleted pages to and try republish with each missing page to find the page with the error. I figured it may be worth a shot to try identify where my error may be. I did this with mine starting from the bottom and working my way up to the top, after backing up my master project file that is.

On each page deletion I published the project and got the same error. I found the offending page was my title page. I opened up the complete project again. Created a new page under my title page then deleted my title page.

I republished the project and I did not get any error messages. I believe I may have solved my own dilemma with the help of the brilliant minds and ideas from folk previously. This once again goes to show the fantastic value and resource this community is.

[RodWard]

This particular error can occur for a number of obscure reasons and tracking down where it is caused by is usually something of a process of elimination.  It might be due to names of actions or objects. It can also sometimes be due to using certain prohibited punctuation characters in areas such as Project Information fields, Closed Caption text etc.

You need to first take a copy of the project file and work ONLY on that file or similar copies so that you can always go back to the original unaltered file and make whatever change is necessary once you find the cause.

First start hiding groups of slides on your copy file and see if hiding any particular slides makes the error go away.  If it does, try to narrow down further until you can find a given slide or object on a slide that could be the cause. 

If hiding all slides at one time or another doesn't solve the problem, start deleting Advanced Actions and related variables (in the copy file) and republish again to see if the error goes away.  It may be that some part of the Advanced action has become corrupted.

Another good debugging method for potential corruption is to copy/pasted all slides into a new project shell of the same dimension.  Sometimes that will strip out the corruption.

[warmstrong]

Thanks Rod, that is great advise. I am going to put that in my notebook on troubleshooting steps.

I found through process of elimination of deleting the slides from the bottom up (since a similar issue was identified on a question slide) that there was something on my title slide that was causing the issue. I cannot say what it was as there were only 2 objects on it being a text box and a continue button. Previously the project had a bunch of animations and sound effects that I had eliminated as they were unnecessary to the project look and feel. It could have been something hung up on the back-end of the page code that caused the issue but by creating a new page with new objects seems to have resolved the issue.