Captivate 2019 - browser cache affecting multiple users

[jeffcaddick]

Short version: courses published to HTML5 from Captivate 2019 are applying progress from one user to a different user on shared computers.

This did not happen when we used these courses in the past, but it does now. The only major difference is we switched our LMS at the beginning of this year - and obviously browsers have been continuing to update.

We discovered this because some users were somehow beginning in the middle of a course (like on slide 28) when they had never opened the course before.

Specifics

I did some testing:

1. I set User 1 to a new registration.
2. I proxied in as User 1 on an InPrivate instance of Edge on a completely unrelated computer (never before used with either the LMS or course). The course started from the beginning.
3. I progressed to slide 4 and exited the course. 
4. I exited that proxy and proxied in as User 2 in the same browser session.
5. I launched as User 2 and was immediately taken to slide 4. I progressed to Slide 5 and exited.
6. I exited that proxy and re-proxied in as User 1. I launched the course and was immediately taken to Slide 5. (I.e., User 1 got User 2's progress)
7. Replicated the same thing with User 3 (immediately sent to Slide 5). Progressed to slide 7. Exited course and proxy.
8. Opened an Incognito instance of Chrome on the same computer.
9. Proxied in as User 1 and launched course. Stayed on slide 5. Exited course and proxy.
10. Proxied in as User 3 (in the Incognito Chrome). REVERTED TO SLIDE 5. I.e., picked up the progress from the previous user, even though I had moved past that in the other browser.
    
    Conclusion: the course is picking up progress from the immediately previous user via something in the browser cache and applying it to the current user.

I have no idea what to do about this. As I said, there is no evidence that this happened during the previous 4 years of using this course on our old LMS. This is our first year on the new LMS. I had their support look into this and a month later they are (apparently correctly) blaming the browsers/course. 

Bonus issue: Back when this was originally reported, I was also seeing that the TOC was behaving oddly - specifically, all sections within the TOC had the "visited" checkmark immediately upon launch, even though none of the contained pages within those sections had a checkmark. We were consistently reproducing that issue at the time for over a month. I'm not aware of any changes being made, but I'm not seeing that behavior in my current testing. So that just adds to my confusion.

Has anyone seen anything like these issues before? Any ideas on what I can do?

[RodWard · Accepted solution]

Look in your TOC settings for a check box called Self-paced Learning.  If that is selected, deselect it.

Then republish and upload to the LMS for further testing.

Self-paced Learning is a kind of bookmarking that records which slide the user reached but stores the slide position in the browser storage.  It might be the cause of your issue. (By contrast, LMS Resume Data bookmarking stores the user progress in the LMS database.)

I haven't personally seen the issue you describe but I have seen issues where both Self-paced Learning and LMS Resume Data were turned on and caused conflicts.

[jeffcaddick]

You're awesome, Ron. That appears to be the issue! Not sure why it wasn't an issue until this year, but good to know. I had never seen that setting before. Thanks for explaining it.

[jeffcaddick]

Doh! I meant Rod.