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Hi there
Food for thought...
Where is your project when you are making edits? Does the drive letter reflect anything other than perhaps C or D? If so, odds are that you are operating on a network. That's one possible reason for corrupting. How are your PC specs? Hopefully beyond recommendations? Exhaustion of PC resources is another reason for corruption (hence the number of slide limitations).
Cheers... Rick 
| Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Hi there
Twistergrl is offering some pretty good advice here. But I'd like to clarify one point that was made.
twistergrl wrote:
1. Are you working from server? If so, start working on your document from your desktop. I then transfer my day's worth of saved documents back to the server to be backed up.
Note that you may discover that even the desktop is actually found on the network. Personally, even though I don't have a network in the picture, I avoid the Desktop as well as the "My Documents" folders as project locations. I regularly recommend creating a folder on your C drive named "Projects". Then create new folders inside this one for each project. This keeps your content near the root and it has a reasonably short path. We have seen issues in the past where a lengthy path causes issues. When you save things on the Desktop, the path is fairly long. Here on my own PC, the desktop path looks like this:
D:\Documents and Settings\Rick\Desktop
And My Documents (the typical default location) looks like this:
D:\Documents and Settings\Rick\My Documents\My Adobe Captivate Projects
Cheers... Rick
| Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
I must CHIME in and add my 2 cents 
I have been using Captivate 4 for the past year with more success than errors, but in the last 2-weeks, (starting 2/12/10) Captivate FREEZES-UP on me all the time now. I'm currently scouring the forums looking for some help myself. I posted my issues in another thread. Please see "Captivate 4 Freezing - why?" (includes my system specs as well)
I read through Twistergirl's recipe list for avoiding errors, and have a couple more of them to add myself.
- In addition to Save, Save and then Save some more every 15-minutes ... then close out of Captivate after doing this a couple of times so you don't lose saved work - yes you read that right - you can lose saved work. My rule of thumb is to Save-As into a new file after any major editing, or deleting of unused items from my library. Oh, and after inserting slides, which seems to pull on system resources and often leads to freezing. if I don't exit Captivate and the program freezes, all of my saved work during that session is GONE. I have shown this "bug" to our desktop support staff and even they are speechless when they witness me losing my work after saving. ADOBE - what could cause this to happen during a Captivate editing session? This makes for a very large folder of development files and is difficult to explain why I need so much more space in the network server to back-up my work at night.
- Do Automatic Windows Updates Do more harm than Good? No, this is not a philosophical question. is there a way for me to find out what Window's updates can cause me unwanted trouble? Since that's the only update to come across my PC that I've allowed in past weeks, I have to wonder if there's a connection.
- Building Closed Captioning? Be sure to have all of your captions planned in advance because captioning in Captivate is unforgiving. I find it easiest to build a Word document with my script and then copy/paste each line into Captivate Captioning. Save the file often (up to 3-times) and then Save-As from there so CC does not go corrupt and spread/duplicate like a virus into other slides.
- If you are still having problems with CC, delete all graphic images from the file. Delete all unused items from library and then Save As to a new file. Close Captivate. Re-launch Captivate and open new file to continue working with CC. ADOBE - How bizarre is that? That the reason I'm having trouble with CC is because of a graphic on another slide?
- Just like Twistergirl, I too keep a freeze log/work journal (in addition to my Storyboards) during the past year to see if I can find any explainable link between editing events and program freezing. So far I can not find anything helpful.
- I'm not working from a server, I Save and Save-As often, I stopped using graphics, and stopped importing slides/video or inserting blank slides and run in Windows Classic mode and keep background processes to a minimum and STILLCaptivate freezes - Maybe we should start a troubleshooting thread for "Thawing out Captivate" and put all of the forum's collective help for avoiding frostbite there.
Truly seeking answers ... 'cuz I need help ...
MissyCher
Hi Noel
And what did Adobe do that corrected your issue? 
Mild rant here - Tech Support for nearly *ANY* company is most often luck of the draw. I say this because I myself used to work in a Technical call center. As with any job, you have folks that care a great deal about what they are doing and they work very hard to provide the best possible support. I tend to find that these fall into the 80/20 rule you hear so much about. You know, 20% of the folks do 80% of the work? Stuff like that. So let's say that in an average call center, you have 20% staff that is totally capable of resolving your issue. This means 80% of the typical staff just don't care. They are only there to collect a paycheck. They really don't care if they do a good job. The job is a means to an end. This means you have an 80% chance of reaching someone that isn't all that interested in solving your issue. Personally, I always strived to be in that 20% group. But I digress. The point to my story here is that Tech Support will often seem dreadful for nearly any company.
I have no idea if the Adobe help desk (which, as I understand it, is not really handled by Adobe, but is outsourced) is set up to categorize calls and connect you with someone actually familiar with the product you are having issues with. The last I heard, Adobe has about 90 different products. So imagine trying to be familiar with all the different products. Likely, they are using some form of scripting (ask the customer if this is happening and if so, choose this option. Otherwise choose this other option) This also isn't meant to say that an outsourced call center generally is worse than one provided in-house. It just seems reasonable to me that if your call center is in house, the staff are closer to the product and as such, should be able to have access to resources that can assist with sticky situations.
All that aside, it's been my own experience that with many software products you encounter issues that seem elusive at best. They seem only to manifest under very specific conditions. And these are the bane of any tech support area. After all, if you can't reproduce the issue during troubleshooting, it's really difficult to figure out where exactly the problem is. Troubleshooting then becomes either swap until you drop or what most folks think of as VooDoo. (Sincere apologies to anyone that practices the actual assorted VoDou religions.)
So sure, Captivate crashes on me occasionally. But I always have a decent backup handy and I save often when working on projects.
Sorry, you can probably tell this is a bit of a passionate subject for me. It used to drive me crazy to see some co-workers play Tetris all day and come ask the same inane questions day after day. Jeez, if you spent only 10% of your Tetris time trying to learn about what you are paid to support, you would have no need to ask for my help!
Cheers and happy Friday... Rick
| Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form |
Rick,
Tech support = Help Desk software. That is the intelligent product behind outsourced companies technical support services to their customers-customers. Another form of GIGO (garbage in - garbage out). You must know that staff fielding support calls are tapping into the company's problem resolution knowledgebase, aka canned answers. Gone are the days of talking to an expert, today we have access to talking with those who are reading the answers from a screen. No one on the other end is actually an "expert" save maybe the occasional consultant called in to provide content to the help desk software database and no one has actually seen this person to provide an accurate description.
So using the 80/20 rule; 80% of the time information is translated by a customer service agent to answer or not-answer a customer's question and only 20% of time is the informatin of any real help. Actual resolutions cannot be quantified through help desk contacts, and help centers calculate resolution percentages on first-call to indicate that they are more successful than not. In reality, their phone systems are so over programmed with voice automation that users can not successfully return to customer service and tell the help desk agent that the help they received was not beneficial.
So Rick, having experience with Captivate crashing/freezing, do you have a handle on what leads up to the program crashing/freezing? And if so, can you provide that information to the forum? If I know how to avoid the problem, I will do my best to avoid crashing/freezing. So far all of my work in this area through problem/resolution journals has been unsuccessful in pointing to any one (or two, or three ...) reasons why this is happening. I rely upon the knowledge that I must save and exit the program often to ensure that I do not lose work. What kind of productivity is that? As our Campus Support Services said to me - "You're spending more time CYA than working."
Oh but I digress ... Dorothy, where are my ruby slippers? I need to click my heels 3-times to wish for a better solution (sigh).
MissyCher
Noel,
Thank you so much for the post. No I still do not have a solution. As of today, I am going on 25-days of lost productivity due to Captivate freezing problems.
Our campus Desktop Support Services became involved 21-days ago to try and assist me with a resolution. Here's a summary of actions taken to date by all parties involved on a single laptop trying to deal with Captivate freezes:
- Troubleshooting - I used Adobe Captivate Help & Support (Top Issues) to "Troubleshoot system errors and freezes on Windows XP (2009/08/11)" documentation. I completed every step from rebuilding my Preferences to Advanced troubleshooting steps. Captivate continued to freeze.
- Next, I placed numerous calls to Adobe Support 800-833-6687. Their phone system hung-up on me 3-times before I got to a person, and then I sat on hold for a total of 1.5+ hours between operators and repeating my issues. I was asked to provide the serial , o/s type, company name etc., to confirm that I had a legal copy installed on my computer, but Adobe Customer Service would NOT accept I had a legally owned copy installed, even though I was looking at my copy of the license from the vendor! ! In the end Adobe refused to transfer me to technical support, would not issue me a case number and said "sorry."
I contacted our Puchasing Office and they are currently investigating why Adobe refuses to asknowledge the legal copy or provide support. - Campus Desktop Support Services collected the laptop after I backed-up all of my work and they replaced the hard drive (a fresh Windows image) and copied all my work onto the new drive. Captivate continues to freeze.
- Desktop Support Services collected the laptop from me again, and this time put the rebuilt hard drive in another laptop (previously cleared through diagnostics) and gave it back to me. Captivate continues to freeze.
- I have since deleted and been rebuilding from scratch all my work on the video project I lost as a result. And guess what? After 12 hours of time invested, Captivate froze up again. Management has request that I stop rebuilding from scratch until a workable solution can be found.
I am so jealous of you Brickyard for getting a solution to the freezing problem. Why isn't the solution you obtained available for download from Adobe support? I am on the verge of losing confidence in Captivate. I think Adobe Customer Service practices are a joke. Have I mentioned yet that I have been using Adobe (previously Aldus) software products for 23 plus years?
Looking for a way out and wishing I was a Camtasia user ... 
MissyCher
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