Captivate 8 failing to open files

[JoNHi]

I've wasted so many hours on this today so I'm really hoping you guys can help me! I have both Captivate 8 and 9 installed on my Mac and they have both worked perfectly fine even as recently as yesterday. Now when I try to open a file in Captivate 8 it completes the process of opening except the file is not on the screen. The file thinks it's open (as in, I can't open it in Captivate 9 as it's already open) I can't see it.

So here's what I know so far:

I have tried several different files in Captivate 8 and all had the same problem.

I tried the same files in Captivate 9 and they open without a problem.

It looks as if the file is opening "off screen" which I know can be a problem with Mac's when using dual screens as I am. I have tried every single fix I could find for this but none of them have worked.

When I open Captivate 8 the opening screen with recent docs shows fine. When I choose a file it has the file loading screen and I even get the message about some items not being used but after that there's nothing.

I've tried upgrading my operating system so that's all up to date.

I've reinstalled Captivate 8.

I've also possibly lost my will to live.

Please help me! Has anyone had this before? How did you fix it?

(I need both 8 and 9 as I have clients who are still on 8 and some that are on 9)

[Lilybiri]

I am a Win-user, so maybe not giving you the correct answers. When you reinstalled Captivate 8, did you clear the Preferences and the Layouts in the public folder (it has no sense that I post a screenshot, since I am on Win)? For Preferences: look for a subfolder Utils under installation folder, there is a file for Mac that you can execute. You can still do that now.

[JoNHi · Accepted solution]

Hi Lilybiri, I've just finally fixed it after 8-10 hours of trying everything! You were definitely on the right track with the preferences issue. Just FYI if someone else asks, I went to ~/Library/Preferences and deleted both the plist file for captivate and a folder called Captivate 8.

I had deleted the file yesterday but not the folder so it hadn't worked.

Such a relief to have it working again! Thanks for you help.

[BDuckWorks]

Glad to hear you got it resolved, now to avoid the problem happening again: set up workspaces for your 'Dual screen' and 'Single Screen' environments.

If you're caught in a mode where panels are opening off screen, you can switch between modes or reset the mode your in from the workspaces menu.