First slide audio does not play correctly......,

[danielb51742821]

Hi,

Captivate 9

My course's narrated audio will not play on the first slide when opening the course when published to html5. SWF works as expected, but html5 is the requirement.

After reaching slide 2, and returning to slide 1, the narrated audio will play.

Am I missing something? I have other courses created from the same theme that does play as expected on slide 1.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

[David Burnham HBA]

My suggestion is that you delay the audio start on the slide to say 1/2 to 1 second to allow the audio to load. This seems to be the workaround that is suggested for html5.

[Lilybiri]

Audio has to be loaded On Enter for each slide. That may take a while and is indeed slower for HTML than for SWF output. For that reason I have learned to avoid audio AND advanced actions on the first slide of a project. Leaving a gap before and after the audio (depending on the size of the clip) is certainly a good practice for all slides, also to avoid that the audio is detected to be a very big project audio. The first slide however is special because much has to be loaded. 

[danielb51742821]

Thanks Lylibiri.

I'm not having much success with this one. I had the opportunity to duplicate the first slide and remove the audio from the first slide (and keep it on slide 2). I'm placing an image of the timeline for slide 2 containing the audio not playing, the audio mngmt screen, the audio in the library and my filmstrip.

The audio is about 24 seconds and the library indicates the audio is about 2200 kb.

what do you mean by "Audio has to be loaded On Enter for each slide"? I've added audio many times and have never had this problem.

[Lilybiri]

Contrary to graphics, text which is loaded at the start of the project, that is not the case for video and audio. Those are loaded on the slide where they are needed, to avoid very long loading at the start of the project. That is the reason why David and myself talked about leaving a small gap, as you do in the screenshot. 

The first slide is an exception because of all that has to be loaded at the beginning of a project. Similar situation for a complicated Advanced Action On Enter for that first slide, which often fails to load. That is why I recommended to avoid any complicated action or heavy audio clip on the first slide. Another often used workaround is to add a first short slide before the present start slide, where nothing is happening. That could solve such loading issues as well.

Since the proposed solution is not working, the problem must be found elsewhere. It is certainly not the size that could be the problem. I see that it is an edited audio file, what happens when you try the original wav-file (Recording26, just below your screenshot in the Library)? Is that one playing?

[danielb51742821]

This problem persists. It is not just the first slide.......

I have determined the audio issue is caused by NOT clicking a clickable object in the course.

I (thought) I had the solution by adding a smart shape as a button telling the learner that the module has narration and to turn the volume up or use headphones, and then click to continue the slide. The note goes away, graphics come in and the narration starts as expected. Problem solved, right? Not so fast.....

Now QA is telling me when a learner exits and comes back in, the narration does not play until, wait for it, something is clicked on the screen. Sometimes thats only the next button, and if used the student has now missed the audio on the slide they came in on.

What could be causing this on ALL of my modules? They all use the same theme and are all part of the same course.

This behavior seemed to have started after I did the Audition round trip. I lowered the bitrate on the audio to 64.

[danielb51742821]

I may have been a little quick on something here.

When the learner exits in the middle, and comes back in, they pick up where they left off. So this behavior is not only the first slide, but all slides.

Lylibiri: your note regarding audio needs to be loaded On Enter for each slide. This is nrration audio that was recorder per slide, as you can see in the image I provided. Is there something I need to do for the on enter for every slide for the audio to play? Never had to do that in the past, and don;t need to do it now as long as some clickable object is clicked on the the first screen a learner sees.

[Lilybiri]

Can you have a look at this blog post, please?

The problem with running audio and/or video on the first slide in Chrome - eLearning

It looks like we'll have to cope with AutoPlay turned off in all eLearning Captivate courses as well. Please help logging the feature requests I proposed in this discussion:

How to cope with Autoplay turned off? - eLearning

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

Daniel, I suspect this has to do with the changes in modern browsers no longer allowing autoplay to function. Go into your preferences window and under the Start and End category turn off autoplay. While this will create a white slide with an ugly play button this should rectify your problem with audio on slide 1. Watch this video if you would like to come up with a nicer looking solution.

Adobe Captivate - Get Rid of Blank Project Startup - YouTube

Check out Adobe documentation on this issue.

Captivate responsive courses will not auto-play on browsers

[SlimahID]

Hi, Daniel did you ever solve this problem because I am having it today as well? I am on Slide 6 which has an advanced action and a text to speech audio, however, as everyone pointed out the audio will not start automatically when I run a preview or launch in HTML5 browser. So, should I just move this audio to the slide before it?

[Lilybiri]

Could you please post a screenshot of the advanced action which, I suspect, is triggered On Enter for the slide?

[SlimahID]

Thanks for responding Lilybiri,

Yes, see attachment. 

[Lilybiri]

That is not a screenshot of the advanced action, but of the Timeline.  I have no idea why that timeline is so long, while you are pausing the slide at 1.5secs, and the audio file is much shorter than the slide duration.

However I wanted to see the Advanced Action, and which event is triggering that action???

[SlimahID]

Okay sorry about that, I will fix all of those items you listed as well. I am sending a screenshot of the advanced actions, interactions, and the actual slide 6, if that helps. 

[Lilybiri]

Take out the command "Pause" if you want to hear the audio.

May I recommend to read these blogs:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/pausing-captivates-timeline

That is the most visited blog in my sequence about basics of the Timeline.

The Quick Start Projects are also having issues when you add Audio, hence this blog:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/tips-adding-audio-to-qsp-slides-ready-to-go-slides

[SlimahID]

Ohhhhhhh wow, okay yes I will remove the pause command and read the blogs. Yes, I used the quick start template for that advanced action slide. THANK YOU!

[SlimahID]

Lilybiri it worked, thank you!!!!

[SlimahID]

Lilybiri, now my smart shapes and stage processes keep leaving the slide after 3.0sec I need them to stay so the learner can execute the action?

[Lilybiri]

Look at my first answer, lot is wrong in timeline. After midnight here...

Select the objects which need to remain visible. Use CTRL-E to extend their duration till the end of the slide.

Moreover move the pausing point of the interactive object Button_2 towards the end of the slide timeline. You probably will not have paused the slide audio with that pausing point. I don't know its purpose, nor the command it is triggering.

[SlimahID]

Good afternoon Lilybiri, just letting you know I was able to fix the issue by extending the duration of each stage process item to show until the end of the slide. So, now thanks to you, my audio works, the advanced action flows properly and my continue to the next slide button is working. Thanks for all of your help!

Side note: This is my first Captivate project. I am working on an eight-module course and this is from unit 1.2.

[Lilybiri]

Thanks for the heads up. 

Please, next time start a new thread. Your question was not really relatd to the original one here in this old thread.

The goal of this user forum is to help as many users as possible. Lof of 'newbies' have issues with understanding the Timeline and its pausing possibilities, but that was not the problem for the original OP here.

[SlimahID]

Okay, sorry about that, and I will continue to do that. I just made a fresh one for a drag and drop activity question.