CPVC demonstration won't load or play

[Lightningone]

Hi,

I recorded a short cpvc video of the screen while demo-ing an application.

It plays perfectly in Preview, both right after saving, as a cpvc file, and after loading into the cptx project. In Preview it looks great..

When I publish the project, the demo does not load. I just get the endlessly spinning wheel.

I'm using a 30 day trial of Captivate 9 on a Windows 10 machine with lots of capacity.

What is wrong here? What can I do to get it to load and play?

Thanks!

[JShannon]

I’m running the 2017 release, version 10.0.0.192.

Thanks

[RodWard]

OK.  Then you should definitely try updating that version to the very latest release before doing anything else.  Your issue might be resolved that way.  If you don't currently have admin access to your own PC then you'll need to engage the services of your IT department, but you should DEFINITELY update.

[JShannon]

Thanks, Rod. I was really hoping for another option since updating is probably out of the question. The way my company handles these things, you’re pretty much locked into whatever version you got when you’re request was approved. (We still have people on versions 8 and 9 who are not able to upgrade to 10.)

But just for the heck of it, what is the current version of Captivate?

[RodWard]

Current version of Captivate is called Captivate 2017 (but you can 'think' of it as version 10).

But based on the usual timeframes for releases there's likely to be a new version of Captivate out anytime soon.  That would be Captivate 2018 (i.e Cp 11)

[JShannon]

Then, it appears my version (2017 release, version 10.0.0.192) is the most current version until the 2018 release?

If so, I’ll have to live with this problem until the new version ships and hope it’s addressed then? Just trying to get a fix on how to explain the failed delivery of my project to management.

Thanks

[RodWard]

I think you misunderstand.  Your version of Captivate 2017 is NOT the latest.  You need to install an update that would bring it up to version 10.0.1.

Whether this would fix your issue, I do not as yet know.  But it's the first sensible thing to do BEFORE wasting a lot of time on debugging further.

Tell management that this update to 10.0.1 will cost them nothing except a little time spent by the IT staff.

Another thing you can try in the meantime is to copy and paste all of your slides into a new project CPTX of the same dimensions to see if the issue is due to corruption of the first project.  Copy and paste sometimes strips out the corruption.  You could also try building a very simple project and just insert the videos one by one to see if the issue reoccurs with just one particular component.

All of these are simple debugging tasks that cost nothing and require no updates, but the update should still be something you try to get.  Each major release of Captivate usually has some other major bugs as well.  So the final minor release of any version is usually the most stable and bug free.

[JShannon]

Ah, got it now. Appreciate the thorough clarification.

Since it will take a while for the update request to go through, I’ll take a shot at all your other suggestions.

Thanks for your time and assistance.

Sent from my iPhone

[JShannon]

Hello Rod,

I know you can only spend so much time on any one problem, but I did want to let you know that I managed to upgrade my version to 10.0.1.285. Unfortunately,  it didn’t seem to fix my crashing problem. I also tried copying the individual slides into a new project, but I still have the problem.

Since the crashing first occurred when I either tried to import a short .cpvc project into my .cptx or just inserted a Video Demo slide in with the Software Simulation slides,  I thought I’d found a workaround by using a FMR slide. But I still can’t preview the project without it crashing as soon as it gets to the video section.

I’m running as Administrator and have almost nothing else running along with Captivate, except for the web-based application I’m trying to document.

Thanks,

John

Moderator: please, don't post personal credentials!

[JShannon]

Just one more thing…

The last couple of times that Captivate died, I received the following error message:

Does this mean anything to you? I’ve found references to the error being received in Captivate, but not in a similar situation.

Thanks

[RodWard]

I could not see any image in your last post so I cannot see the error messages.

Now that we know you are on the latest version and have all patches installed, there are a couple of other things you can try:

• You don't mention whether you are running Captivate with Run As Administrator privileges.  If you are not, try asking the IT department if they will give you this level of access to your own PC.  It could be the reason your Captivate install is crashing when trying to perform this action.
• To test whether the issue is perhaps related to your user profile on your PC, ask one of the IT people who DO have Admin privileges to log into your PC, launch Captivate with Run as Administrator privileges, and then see if they can perform the same task without issue.  If the software works perfectly for them, then you know the issue is related to your user privileges.
• Make sure your Default Folder locations for the Project Cache and Published Output are both pointing to folders on the hard drive of your own PC, not some virtual folder on a server somewhere.

[JShannon]

Hello Rod,

Sorry the screenshot didn’t come across. I’ve attached it in a Word doc. Hopefully that will work.

I do have Admin privileges on my computer and have been starting Captivate in that mode. It’s still worth a try to have one of the IT folks remote in and give it a try. I’ll work on that today.

I’ve verified that all default folders are located on my local drive. I should mention too that I’ve only gotten the attached error message a couple of times. Usually, the slide just dies and takes Captivate down with it. I don’t see any pattern to where it croaks, but it seems like it’s usually 30 or 40 seconds into it.

Thanks again for working with me.

[Lilybiri]

It is not possible to attach documents.... I don't know how you access the questions: from the portal or directly on the Jive forums? If it is the last, look in the browser version for this icon:

[JShannon]

Thanks, Lilybiri. I didn’t know that. Rod and I have been communicating via e-mail exchange, so I’ll go back to the forum site from here on.

Regards,

John

[Lilybiri]

Suspected as much....

[RodWard]

You've been replying to the automated emails that come from the forum.  But replying to those emails just goes back to the forum, not to me directly.  So any attached files in your email will get stripped out via the forum.

[JShannon]

Sorry for the confusion, Rod & Lilybiri. The e-mail exchange outside the forum kind of gums things up. Anyway, here's the error I'm getting:

More often than not, it just crashes and I don't get this error message. I don't know if this is always the underlying cause or just one of them.

Thanks

[RodWard]

I have never seen this particular error, but it looks like you may have a conflict with another application on your computer.  Ask your IT people to look at the Application Logs and the Windows OS Errors Log to see if you can get more information about which other app or DLL is involved here.  My gut feeling is that this issue started 'suddenly' happening after you installed or updated some other application and now that app and Captivate are having a bun fight.