HTML5 does not load if audio has CC

[LaurenID]

I am using Captivate 2019, version 11.0.1.

I have an 80 slide module that I published to HTML5 and uploaded to my company's server. It loaded perfectly fine.

I then went to the project and added Closed Captions to all of the audio. Published, uploaded, and it does not load in the browser. Spinning wheel of doom.

So I disabled the Closed Captions (by deselecting all of the checkmarks for each audio file), republished, reuploaded, and it loads fine again.

HTML5 doesn't like something in the CC and I'm not sure where to even begin to look. Is there a list somewhere of characters I cannot have in CC?

Edit: When I just publish the 1st slide (everything else hidden), it loads and the CC works as expected. So the CC itself isn't broken necessary entirely. Just some slides.

[RodWard]

The usual problem characters are any that are also used in HTML code or JavaScript.  This includes things like &, #, <, >, /, \, etc.

Would you by any chance have some of those characters in the CC text?

[LaurenID]

Hi Rod, thanks for the response.

So to test this thing, I've hidden all of the slides except 1-12.

When 1-12 all have CC, it doesn't load. When 1-11 has CC but 12 does not, it loads. So - 12 is the culprit.

I'm looking through the CC and can't see any characters in particular that might cause the issue. Periods and commas, but those are in the other slides.

There are semicolons, hyphens, parentheses, and a % sign though. I'll remove those and see if it loads.

----

Nope, doesn't load. I double-checked the entire CC for slide 12 to make sure it ONLY has periods and commas like the other slides.

Could it be the length? It is the first slide to go over a minute... not sure I can do anything about the length, though.

[RodWard]

At least you've found the slide where the issue resides.  Another thing that can sometimes cause issues is invisible formatting that gets into the works when you copy text from some other application.

To get rid of this:

1. Copy all of the CC text from that slide into Notepad to strip off any formatting and get back to plain text.
2. Then remove the CC lines from that slide.
3. Next add more CC lines and copy the text back from Notepad.

Now test again.

[TLCMediaDesign]

It may just be a glitch in how the CPM.js is created for that slide.

I've had instances where Captivate was putting vertical bars | and other characters in my CC.

Try deleting the slide. Save. Re-open on rebuild the slide and see what happens.

[LaurenID]

Thanks Rod and TLC!

The problem is that, from my various show/hide slide testing, there are many slides that are corrupted, not just 12. 12 is just one I found specifically, but there was also 13, 14, and more.

But I did as Rod mentioned and tried pasting the CC back in as plain text. I think that worked. The project is loading.

So I suppose pasting the narration from Word was the wrong way to go about it.

I'll need to repaste every caption from Notepad. Right before the holiday. Woohoo!

[Lilybiri]

Pasting formatted text (like from Word, famous for bad coding) is always a bad idea. Start from unformatted text, styles are applide in Captivate? Same recommendation is valid for many applications like desktop publishers.

You can export to txt files (unormattes) from Word).