Captivate (2023) Free Trial

[geoffx]

Hi! I recently downloaded Adobe Captivate (2023) through the free trial option, and I'm unable to save any edits, whether it be through a template or with a new project. It shows the loading icon indefinitely and I eventually have to force quit the app. 

Is this because I haven't purchased the subscription to Captivate? I don't want to buy the subscription and still have this error occur. 

 

[Lilybiri]

Did you use the default paths when installing the trial version? I would suggest to check them, because they need to be on your system, not on a shared or a networked drive (including cloud). Is that the case.

AFAIK Captivate's trial versions have always been fully functional. From your screenshot I see that you are on a Mac, but the menu is missing. How did you save?  You could check the paths I mentioned under Preferences, which are  - not sure - under the Captivate.

[geoffx]

Hello! I redownloaded and installed the app, but I'm still running into the same issues.  If I try pressing save from this screen, I get the same issue with the loading icon. If I try changing the location it's saved at (by pressing the folder icon), I still get the same issue as well. Should I be trying something else?

[Lilybiri]

I see the path, but your documents may still be outside of your system or synchronized with a cloud storage. As I am a Windows user I don't know exactly how the Mac version looks like. Do you run Captivate with Administrator rights? Try to find the subfolder 'utils' under the installation folder and run the file 'CleanPreferencesMac' while Capitvate is closed.

[geoffx]

Hmm, yes I believe I run Captivate with administrator rights. I'm running on a personal Macbook Air M2 2022 I just bought this week. I found the 'CleanPreferencesMac' and ran it but it still didn't help. 

[Lilybiri]

Did you check if Captivate supports M2? I am sure about M1.

[kdmemory]

M2 should be okay. I'm running on a M2 Max chip with no problem for Captivate 12.2.0.19 on MacOS Ventura 13.6.1. But you're saying you just bought your Macbook Air this week. Which probably means that you got MacOS Sonoma pre-installed. And Captivate isn't yet supported on Sonoma. See Adobe Captivate System Requirements.

[geoffx]

Thanks for all your help! In the link you sent, it says "macOS Ventura (13.4) or later. Note: Captivate isn't yet supported on Sonoma."

I'm currently running macOS Ventura (13.3), but the software update tab it says my next update is for macOS Sonoma 14.1.1. Does this mean that Sonoma is pre-installed? Do you know if there is way I can update to Ventura 13.4 or later without Sonoma? 

Thanks 🙂

[geoffx]

Oh wait. I figured it out. Let me try updating to Ventura 13.6.1 and see if it works.

[geoffx]

Alright. The app still isn't letting me save anything with macOS Ventura 13.6.1 😞

[kdmemory]

Sorry Geoff, the thing with Sonoma was a possibility but obviously it wasn't the culprit. Well, then ...

• try to save your Cp file to a different location
• try to save your file under a different name (not untitled1 or similar, give it a proper name)
• try to save some file from a different application (i.e. .jpg from Photoshop) to your desired saving location: /Users/geoffreyxue/Documents/Adobe Captivate (to check if the location doesn't cause an issue)

Let us know how it goes.

[geoffx]

I tried all of the above- changing the name doesn't work, and I can't change the saving location anyways because everytime I press on the folder to change location, the loading icon pops up again too :(. Customer support basically said that M2 isn't supported? I'll try to continue talking with them but it's not looking too good haha

[kdmemory]

Hm!? Three things:

I doubt that what Adobe Customer Care are saying about Captivate not being supported on M2 chipset is right. Obviously I only know from my experience: Captivate is running fine on my M2 Mac Studio. Also, if really no support on M2 that would be a poor performance from Adobe in the MacWorld, given that a number of Apple Macs are now running on M2 or even M3. That and the fact that Captivate is still not ready for Sonoma - what is Adobe doing - deep sleeping?

Anyway, have you tried the suggestion Customer Care gave you? And did you check with the Finder whether the folder /Users/geoffreyxue/Documents/Adobe Captivate is (or was) really missing? What happens if you manually add this folder?

[geoffx]

No luck, unfortunately. They told me to create a root user and log into that and try, but I couldn't even open the dmg file after I logged into root.

I'm probably just going to buy a used (older) Mac for this project -- it's for university, then resell it. So much work!!

[Lilybiri]

I am very sorry. There must be a reason why eLearning tools have so much trouble on a Mac. Not all are even available on that platform. Each new iOS messes up with Captivate and often also with other Adobe applications. From this forum I know that the majority of users are on Windows which only rarely causes that type of issues.

I also know that the more 'creative' applications give a priority to Mac, and some apps for iPad never are released for Android. There must be another reason for that as well.

[kdmemory]

Geoffx, this all is quite puzzling. Did you enable the "root' user like described here: How to enable the root user... via the Directory Utility? And then after having logged in as root which dmg file you couldn't open? The Captivate installer like AdobeCaptivate_LS21_new.dmg? The one from the VIP download as advised by the Adobe Customer care?
And on a slightly different historic level, did you previously install and use the original Captivate trial as Admin User? Are you normally an Admin user on your Mac/MacOS?