Adobe technical support - what a joke!

[kaydan000000001]

I have tried to get technical support for CAPTIVATE CS4 for about 4 hours only to get through to someone in INDIA who has absolutely not a clue of what I am talking about and who can barely speak english. Then I was promised a call back within 10 minutes which never came, waited on hold for over 30 minutes, only to be disconnected, then eventually got through again only to be hung up on!

I am flabergasted that it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get any technical assistance from anyone at ADOBE.  You can spend literally going around and around in circles on the Adobe website - you click on "Contact Us" and it's about another 50 questions !!!!!  only to end up back where you started from !   I found a phone number in Sydney, which diverted me back to the morons in INDIA !!!

Software is great - customer support TOTALLY SUCKS!

[kaydan000000001]

Hi Rick

I think that your .flv file demonstration with the little dog clearly

shows that you don't need an .flv player for the Captivate project to play

that has an .flv file included in it.   Would you agree?

Kay

[johndaigle]

Hmmm. OK, I'm graspin' but here are a few things:

I'll take this since Rick has been known to make presentations all over the world at 3 am, so there's no telling where he is now.

Regarding your question about the Flash Player and Rick's little dog - Captivate's .swf DOES need the player to display the FLV. As you know, the FLV is not "embedded" in the swf but is external to it and is displayed inside Captivate's swf "wrapper." Then, the FLV itself also requires the Flash Player as well. You don't see any evidence of the player come up, but it's there in the background using the web browser plug-in.

1. You really, really, need to follow Rick's advice about the web admin/intranet folks as explained in this link.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/194/tn_19439.html

My own web  server is Windows Server 2003 and I had to use this tech note article myself (and it worked!)

2. I'm sure you did but you *did* remember to publish the FLV in addition to the .htm and .swf and standard.js, to the intranet server, right?

3. You may also have to get with the Intranet administrator to doublecheck any permissions or security issues that may be blocking the content for whatever policy reason (firewall issue, etc?).

4. Rick supplied a video with his little dog (which I've had the pleasure of hearing many times during our Skype sessions ).

However, if you want to experiment with an FLV that definitely has metadata, here is a link to download a short clip from my website:
http://www.showmethedemo.com/tutorials/clowns2/2ocellaris.flv

The whole demo, Clownfish of Indonesia has 7 FLVs averaging about 1.5 MB each.

http://www.showmethedemo.com/tutorials/clowns2/

Hang in there. It'll happen.

John

[kaydan000000001]

Hi John,

I inserted your .flv file of the clownfish fish into my Captivate project

and the video played during Preview (F4), but then I clicked Publish, and

View Output and your video doesnt play !  (So I'm assuming it won't play

on my intranet either) ???

Kay

[kaydan000000001]

Hello again John,

I read on a website that .flv files wont play when the Captivate project is hosted on a Windows 2003 server.  Anyway, I published my Captivate project (containing your clown fish .flv file) to my hard drive as was suggested on the website, and all works !!

Not sure where to go from here ... back to my IT guy I'm guessing...

[johndaigle · Accepted solution]

I would print out that knowledge base article and take it to the IT folks whether you're using Windows Server 2003 or not.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/194/tn_19439.html

This has GOT to be some kind of permission/security thing.

Thanks
john

[kaydan000000001]

VICTORY  !!!

The tech info about Windows (originally from Rick) about Windows 2003 server not streaming flv videos did the trick.

Many thanks to everyone for your help and patience with me - you're worth your weight in gold !! 

Kay

[Captiv8r]

Yay! I'm pleased you got it to work!

[johndaigle]

Whenever I use a third party encoder such as the Any Video Converter, I often need to inject Metadata into the FLV. This is important because Captivate needs to know things like how long the Video plays etc. and this data is provided by the metadata. The free Buraks FLV Metadata Injector does exactly that.

Because it is a little cryptic to use, I created a narrated Captivate demo to show you exactly how to use it. It was created for a previous version, but I think it is still applicable and worth looking at. The demo is very short.

http://www.showmethedemo.com/Resources.htm

UPDATE: When you get to that page, click on the link, Using           FLV MetaData Injector to see the demo.

Let us know if this helps.

Thanks
john

John Daigle

Adobe Certified Captivate and RoboHelp Instructor

www.showmethedemo.com

[kaydan000000001]

Hi John

I downloaded the files and follow the instructional video - all worked as

per the video, then published the Captivate project, (the .flv file

incidently doesnt work when I "view output" in Captivate, but it works

when I preview in my browser (before uploading), and it plays when

double-clicking the .htm file in Windows Explorer, but still the uploaded

version on the intranet won't play !

Kay

[jay fresno]

Wonderful! I was rooting for you!

[johndaigle]

Congrats, Kay. Your persistance paid off!

John

[kaydan000000001]

it's running beautifully ... (very exciting) except do I dare ask another tiny question?  The .flv video is stopping just short of completion, then the Captivate project goes to the next slide (?)

[johndaigle]

In your slide, double click on the FLV placeholder and then the Options tab. Try these property settings:

Set display video for "rest of slide" with the "pause slide till end of video" checked. Just to be sure, I'd also place Transition to "No transition".

If you're still having problems, let us know how all the properties are set in the Flash Video and Options tab dialogs.

John

[kaydan000000001]

many thanks John ... right on the money again ... Kay

[jamesnotjim]

I've, so far, had only good experiences with Adobe technical support. But, I can say with certainty, that support from the Adobe Captivate user community, via these forums, is exceptional, as this thread clearly shows.