Captivate 9 html 5 ipad issues

Report · Sep 23, 2015

Hi, I currently have a few elearning courses built using captivate 7 that I need to update so that users can view these on iPad devices. I have tried converting these using the HTML5 publish settings on both Captivate 7 & 9 but am having lots of issues with various items not working when viewed on the iPad. Most problems seem to be buttons not working when clicked (they have the press action when clicked, they just do not work and do what they should). Also, Click Box items appear to not be working on the iPad. I've run the courses through the HTML5 tracker and nothing is coming up.

Been very disappointed with Adobe Captivates ability to publish onto mobile devices thus far.

Report · Sep 23, 2015

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your concern.I would be grateful if you could please share the project to a shared location(say dropbox) or drop a mail to adtiwari@adobe.com . It would be of great help if you could also share the original CP7 project.

Thanks,

Aditya Tiwari

Report · Sep 24, 2015

Thank you. I have sent an email with both captivate versions of the files as well as the outputted HTML5 package. Also, have sent some screengrabs of examples of buttons not working on mobiles devices.

Look forward to your feedback.

Mark

Report · Oct 02, 2015

Hello - is there any update to this? I sent the files as requested over a week ago and havent heard anything back. I have clients chasing me for work which I cannot carry out until I get this resolved.

Thank you.

Report · Oct 15, 2015

Captivate's HTML5 output is terrible. They advertise all of these great new features, but without a reliable final product, what's the point?

I have tried everything, but cannot get Captivate HTML5 file to work consistently on a mobile device. Buttons work sometimes, and sometimes they don't work at all. Sometimes slides load quickly, sometimes they don't load at all. Sometimes the audio plays immediately and sometimes (more often than not) there is a 2-3 second delay after a slide starts. I've followed all of the "tips from experts" and nothing works.

I've been forced to create my own custom HTML solutions for my mobile learning and have been relegated to publishing the Captivate files as .mp4 to include in those.

It's still a great tool for creating software simulations and publishing to .mp4, but all of the bells and whistles they keep adding each release are useless to me until they figure out how to produce a stable HTML5 output.

Report · Oct 16, 2015

Hi Chris2 White,

Could you explain more about your HTML5 issues on ipad? also want to know what do you mean by stable HTML5? when you say it takes 3 secs delay after slide starts, May I know what does the slide contains(any heavy audio etc). You can also send me a mail at sankaram@adobe.com (in case if you want to share some sample project depicting your issues)

Thanks,

Sankaram.

Report · Oct 16, 2015

By stable, I mean consistent (e.g. you can expect it to work correctly every time). The main issue I have is with simple audio narration--not background audio. Whether it's a software simulation or a slide where I've added graphics, when I play it on an iPad (I've tried multiple iPad devices), the audio does not start for 2-3 seconds after the next slide starts. Maybe it's considered audio heavy to have audio attached to each slide, but Captivate is designed to create narrated videos, correct?

And it's not consistent. It doesn't happen on every slide, and it doesn't happen on the same slides every time. But it completely ruins the user experience.

I understand that with HTML5 the browser has to load the audio each time a slide changes. But is there a way you guys can pre-load the audio so that it's ready for the next slide? It's not a matter of my network either. I'm working with a 60 Mbps connection here.

Report · Oct 16, 2015

Yes Captivate IS designed to created narrated content, but that doesn't mean every approach you may take will work the same.

Make sure there is a small gap between the beginning and end of each slide audio clip and the timeline ends. Don't let the audio clips touch the timeline endings otherwise Captivate joins the clips together creating larger than necessary audio clips which then take longer to download. This could be the explanation why some slides do or do not show the same lag.

As you have stated, HTML5 and SWF content are fundamentally different and nobody should expect the two to play the same. In SWF content the elements for each slide can be preloaded, even up to the entire SWF. In HTML5 content there are lots of limitations imposed by the pitifully small amounts of memory that mobile devices can allocate to multimedia content. That's why each slide more or less needs to load the elements when you reach it. I believe the Captivate developers have not gone the route of trying to download audio clips for later slides because it would be impossible to predict in branching scenarios how much audio should be loaded, and trying to guess all probabilities would run the risk of crashing the mobile browsers (which already happens far too often). Audio playback cannot start until all the other elements are already set up on the slide, So it's the last to load.

Your network speed is not the biggest factor here. HTML5 content involves hundreds and hundreds of file requests to the server, whereas SWF content only involves a handful of requests. Your issue could be simple server latency.

Report · Oct 23, 2015

I too have been experiencing similar issues with a large course I am developing (broken down into many bite-sized modules). The voiceover audio doesn't play on an iPad but all the other elements on the slide play as expected. I've left spaces in the timeline around the audio clip so it's not bumping up to either end of the timeline but still not playing. The slide runs through without the audio and then progresses to the next slide with the voiceover never playing.

I have a question regarding your comment: "Audio playback cannot start until all the other elements are already set up on the slide, So it's the last to load."

In my project, I have the voiceover beginning first and then as the voiceover progresses, various elements (text, images, graphics with simple effects) appear in sync to the voiceover for emphasis and understanding. An example timeline: voiceover audio starts at .2 seconds > caption 1 appears at 1sec > caption 2 appears at 2 sec > PNG image fades in at 4 sec > PNG graphic flies in from right at 5 sec > voiceover audio ends at 9.5 sec > slide ends at 10sec.

According to your comment above, this scenario isn't possible since the audio is the last to load. Am I understanding correctly? If the items load in from the server in the order they appear on the timeline, then the whole slide would have to play before the audio playback begins?? OR, do all the elements load in, regardless of their place on the timeline, when the slide is started… which would result in a 2-3 sec. delay of the audio starting?

Apologize for the confusion but this is beyond frustrating, and like everyone here, I'm grasping for a clear understanding and workable solution so this project is not held up any longer. THANKS!!

Report · Oct 23, 2015

It may LOOK like the objects on the slide only get loaded when they appear, but in HTML5 content all of those elements get loaded but are hidden until the point on the timeline where they need to be visible. SWF content is handled differently.

Report · Oct 23, 2015

Hi… thank you for your clarification, that helps.

General question, since this seems to be an issue for so many… is it unrealistic to create a course with audio & video at this time and expect that it will be successfully delivered on an iPad through an LMS?? I'm beginning to think this is just outside of the limits of the currently available technologies and to attempt to do so is not a realistic venture? The course I am creating is hardly complicated, but does include slide voiceovers and some small demonstration videos, delivered as SCORM to an LMS.

Has anyone had success with this? If so, what's the magic recipe??

Report · Oct 23, 2015

I do think it's unrealistic. I've totally given up on Captivate for anything but publishing to an .mp4 file (no quizzes or other interactions). I do think as mobile. browsers get better, there will be less issues.

It's really frustrating because while I understand the dislike for Flash, it was perfect for e-learning. HTML5 has a long way to go before it's even useable. Maybe Captivate needs to create an iPad app to view the output like Articulate Studio has.

Report · May 25, 2016

There are several ipad apps that will allow flash to play on an ipad:

Puffin Web Browser

Photon Flash Player

The problem is that you have to get your entire user base to purchase and load the apps first...

Report · Aug 14, 2016

We have successfully created Captivate files that play on tablets (both iPAD and Android) but it was a lot of work. The audio issue was resolved by chunking up the modules so there weren't more than 30 slides per file. That was the cut off point for us, more than that and the audio didn't synch up or choked.

We also found that when the file was viewed on tablets, the hit area for the buttons were shrunk so small that users couldn't always get them. To fix that issue, we ended up creating a large invisible button that took up a lot of area, and a button image that looked like a button so users knew where to select.

Report · Oct 15, 2015

Multi state video does not work for HTML 5 on the iPad...it only plays the first video and will not let you go the next.

Report · Oct 15, 2015

Straight screen captures with simple slide audio don't work correctly either. Nothing works consistently.

Report · Oct 19, 2016

I am facing severe HTML5 output failures (on desktop browsers) in a Captivate 9 project.

- It starts with some 12 seconds loading time until the start screen shows up, showing only one single of all elements, a grey horizontal line. After doing a browser refresh the entire screen appears (with no loading time in Safari, with loading time in Chrome, as before in Firefox).

- Second comes a sequence with some images refusing to show up as they should in the timeline (all browsers).

- And then most of the buttons simply do not work consistently. "Best" results in Firefox, where sometimes something happens after hitting a button severals times.

I would give the files confidentially to review personally, if someone would be so kind to take a closer look. The client does not allow Flash on his systems for security reasons. He wants it in Captivate, though we are thinking about switching the whole project to Storyline.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Report · Oct 19, 2016

How large is your project? How many slides? How many megabytes?

Report · Oct 19, 2016

Our test run is 13 slides long. The entire folder (html only) is 4,8 MB. image sizes sum up to 300 KB / slide. So this shouldn't be the problem. Also I had projects with the same file sizes and no problems in HTML5.

Report · Oct 26, 2016

Finally I received some kind and patient service by a Captivate specialist at Adobe, which was very helpful. The amount of different issues behaving differently on different browsers was quite confusing. Now it turned out that each had it’s own reason.

- Images that showed up in Flash did not in HTML5. The reason was an unnecessary gamma setting for the fading.

- Buttons and hotspots that didn’t work in Safari did work in IE11. For various reasons, namely the hotspot-layer was not always set in front in the mouse-over status, which resulted in a second click necessary to perform.

- I had problems with loading the first screen, which took very long and was only complete after a second refresh. For some (cache?) reasons some things may work only properly when they are launched from online instead of desktop based.

I didn’t run tests on iPad though (my client needs the stuff on Win only), but I guess that resolved a lot of trouble.

Thanks again for the support. They actually called me back because they are somewhat hard to reach over the normal hotline. (Captivate is not part of the Adobe CC portfolio and so it’s support is located elsewhere.)

Report · Oct 26, 2016

I'm glad you received good support from Adobe. But e-learning courses are tough enough to design and develop without having these type of issues.

Right now, there are better options than Captivate's HTML5 output. Thankfully, they've improved the conversion to .mp4 process which is a good workaround for some things.

Report · Oct 26, 2016

Hi Peter,

Thank you for taking the time and explaining the reason for all of the issues as we discussed. In future you may use the link below to contact Captivate support: Contact Customer Care

Regards,

Ashish