image and slide errors once published in scorm in LMS

[Guest]

Hello 

We appear to have started to have some issues with captivate 9 files. 

System recorded units, all ok once created, however, once we publish to scorm and place into our LMS, we have issues with slides freezing or images not appearing, audio can sometimes get stuck on a slide. 

The only resolution i have been able to do, is to go back to the original captivate file and delete offending slide, and replace with a new slide. This is obviously time consuming and not ideal. 

Any ideas why we are experiencing these problems. they appear to be random, and we don't have the issue on every unit i create, just some.  All units are similar in their make up. All images i have changed to jpeg or png so files are not large. Particular one im trying to resolve is 9mb  

Thanks for you help

Hazel  

[Lilybiri]

Which exact version number do you use? It should e 9.0.2.437. Do you publish to HTML5 or to SWF?

Most CP-users think that problems are caused by images, but audio clips tend to have a much bigger file size, and have to be loaded On Enter for each slide. Try to leave a gap before and after the audio clip on each slide. That will prevent that Captivate sees the audio as a project audio.

You talk about freezing: if you are publishing to HTML5 do you have FMR (Full Motion Recording) slides?

[Guest]

Hello thank you for replying so promptly, much appreciated 

in answer to the above 

1. Im using using captivate 9 9.02.437 

2. I don't understand what you mean by 'on enter' for adding audio. I typically add slide notes, then convert to text to speech and select the audio voice our customer has requested, which is one downloaded from adobe (bridget) Once added to the timeline, I then ensure it does not start until 0.5 after the slide has started and ends with similar 0.5 at end (just like your screen shot) 

In properties some audio is named (cliptext) to audio and others are shown as audio 

I have no full motion slides, as delete those so we can have interactive slides where the user is asked to click on something to move to the next screen, or hover to view more info before pressing continue button to move on. 

The audio and slides work fine in captivate. the problem seems to be when i hand it over to our lms team to publish to the lms. I will have to pose your questions to them on what they do as I do not know. I suspect the issue lies with what they are doing. 

Thank you for your help with this 

I will contact our lms team with your question 

kind regards Hazel 

[Lilybiri]

If you look at the size of the audio clips in the Library, you'll understand what I mean by file size more important than for graphics. You can find two clips for the same audio, because to allow editing you alway have a wav file, once edited you'll have another file based on that first file. The usage button will tell you which one has been used on the slide. When publishing the wav files will be compressed to MP3.

Fine that you already had the gaps, thought you mentioned also issues with audio in the question.

You have interactive slides, created automatically by the Training or Assessment mode while recording? Or did you add interactivity later on? In the last scenario, check the pausing points.

Pausing Captivate's Timeline - Captivate blog

[Guest]

Yes the files are large. Our LMS team thought changing the background images from .bmp to jpeg or png files would be resolve the issues by reducing the size of the files. This i have already actioned. 

Are you saying i need to find the slides where there are 2 audio files, and delete one? which one should i delete? 

I have edited audio on some slides to enter silences to pause the slide and give the user time to view all info when hovering, then the continue button appears so they can move on at their leisure.  I ll need to reviee that link you've sent as on first reading, i dont understand 

The recordings are done in demo mode and then i add interactivity where i want to add it. So the finished article has part demonstration slides, and part stop and click or hover to view some info ive given you to look at. Again, you say check the pausing points.. what am i actually looking for in troubleshooting? 

Thanks again for your help 

hazel 

[Lilybiri]

Image files will be compressed when publishing as well.  Instead of changing the image format it is much more important to use images with exactly the size needed in Captivate, not to resize them in the app. Moreover, when possible, don't forget that Captivate also accepts SVG's which can be very small.

SInce you talk about freezing, and objects not appearing, it is possible that the pausing points are not well timed. That is the reason I posted a link to one of my blog posts. Based on years of forum experiences and thousands of answers, I am aware of the fact that not well understanding the Timeline is at the base of a lot of questions and frustrations.

You could post a screenshot of a troublesome slide, where I can screen the pausing points.

[Guest]

Hi thanks for your help with this 

Im going to review the blog you posted, and i have booked a course but its not until  later this year. im awarethere are an awful lot of gaps in my knowledge.

 Just a couple of questions. Can we set default settings in captivate for both images being recorded (so instead of having to convert them to png from .bmp which is default they record in) and audio? i cant see how to set defaults for both.

For the wav files, would you suggest exporting and converting them to mp3 then import back in? would that cause other issues?

Or do you think my issues are to do with the timeline and not with the audio/image file sizes? 

Thanks Hazel 

[Guest]

This is image of time line on the slide having problems with 

not sure you can see anything from this really and i dont know what im doing with this either.. need to read the blog! 

[Lilybiri]

Is this the complete timeline? I only see the audio timeline and the slide timeline. I thought you had issues with slides where you added interactive objects?

[Lilybiri]

You don't need to convert the image and audio files, since Captivate takes care of the compressing on publishing. I think you are mostly talking about the background images created during the recording?

When I talked about the image size (in px) I meant other images than the background. You could try changing the slide quality (it is set to Optimized), sometimes that will affect file size. Same with audio settings: go for the lowest parameters that still give sufficient quality.

Be careful with training: there is a lot of outdated training around. Even in books I really see that good practice and timesaving work flows almost never are treated. The three stumbling blocks for newbies which should be included in any good training are: Timeline, Quizzes and Themes. Have a look at:

Challenges for Starters - Captivate blog

[Guest]

Hi 

yes  was talking about the recorded slides as by converting them to jpeg i have significantly reduced the size of the units.

other images i add as media images i use png which are relatively small

ok on slide quality - what would you suggest? maybe the jpeg option? 

dont know how to change audio settings.. presume in one of these blog links you've sent me. Can i change this as default or do i have to do each audio file separataley? 

I've sourced a training course by media learning 2day introduction course .. i spoke to the trainer, it sounded like a good course, hands on for 2 days right from scratch 

just seen your other message come through - this was just the audio line. this particular slide, when published, the highlight boxes did not appear and the images i had added also did not appear.

[Lilybiri]

There are 3 rollover objects (not supported on mobile devices, hope you are aware of that). Are these rollover captions/images or slidelets? Do you publish to HTML5?

There is one interactive object (continue_5) which seems to pause the slide almost at its end. Check the timing, if it is a button, avoid to have the pause exactly at the end.

On the TImeline I don't see any reason why the highlight boxes do not appear, nor the images. Unless you have a shape button in a previous slide which is set to appear for the rest of the project and is pausing this slide at a time before the highlight boxes. Such a pausing point wouldn't necessarily pause the slide audio. Can you also check the action On Enter for that slide? Is it playing correctly when you use F12 'Preview in Browser' (if output is to SWF) or F11 'Preview HTML5 in Browser' if output is to HTML5.

Maybe you did decrease the file size of the cptx project by converting the bmp image, but that doesn't mean that the output folder has a smaller file size. I told that Captivate is compressing most assets, not sure that doing it manually will give a better result. You have to test it out.

The audio settings are to be found under the Audio menu. See if you can lower the bitrate. Those settings will be used by Captivate when compressing the wav files to mp3. Do not compress them manually.

[Guest]

Hi 

The rollovers on this slide are all captions (i have image rollover on other slides) 

From speaking to a colleague we believe the LMS team publish to Scorm (not HTML5) but im waiting on confirmation on what they exactly do..

From experience I've found the continue has to have the pause right at the end otherwise it stops the whole slide, which want we want to achieve is when the hovers overs kick in, the user can take as long as they want to view the information before moving on.

There is no issues with running the slides n captivate. I can runt he whole unit through on preview and it works perfectly. All the images appear when they should, the audio is perfect, the continue appears when it should etc.

The issue has arisen when our team have published the file and placed in the LMS. Im trying to find out what they exactly do.

But this is random. I've created 26 units with similar interactivity and this issue has effected 2 units only 

Thanks Hazel 

[Lilybiri]

Sorry to disagree, there can be problems with executing the action On Success for an interactive object if you push the pausing point to the end of the slide, have it a short time earlier (even 0,1sec is better). A pausing point is meant to pause some items on the slide, as I explained in that blog post (and will do at the Adobe Learning Summit in October). Why do you say 'it stops the whole slide'? It doesn't, will not pause the slide audio (unless you check that option), nor object audio, nor animations, nor Play audio clips, nor event video, nor widgets. The timing of the pausing point is important, but never put it at the last frame.

[Guest]

no please tell me if i have things wrong.. i only know what i know from trial and error. 

the purpose of the continue button is to allow people to move on when they are ready otherwise the slide continues to play and moves to the next slide automatically when the slide ends when they might not be ready or may not have viewed all the hover overs. I've tried variations and by dragging the pause part to the end is the only way i have been able to get this to work as i want it to.   

im aware i have gaps in my knowledge . i will read the blog posts tomorrow to see if i can understand how to use this functionality better. 

Thanks hazel 

[Lilybiri]

I tried to explain not to do it right at the end if it is on a normal slide. Just move the pausing point little bit to the left with the mouse or use the Timing properties

THE easiest way to pause each slide at the end (it looks then more as a presentation than as eLearning) is this work flow:

• Go to the Main Master slide
• Insert a shape button with the look you want as Next button; by default it will pause each slide at its end, you can check under Actions tab; you'll see that the default action is 'Go to Next Slide' which is what you want.

For each slide you now only have to make sure that master slide objects are visible.

[Guest]

Hi... um I'm not sure on that workaround. The customer does not want users to have to select next each time to move on, or have it visible. The units are demonstration so should move seemlessly through. The continue button is only on a few slides and is clicked to move to the next slide only, otherwise the slide will just move to the next when the slide ends. On those slides, we have hover overs either captions or images for the user to look at.

I will review the links you have passed tome to understand the functionality better

But it seems that the issues we are experiencing in the LMS maybe be due in part to the pausing of my continue button, so that warants investigation

Thanks for advising on the audio.. it is set to the highest, so again i will lower that and see if it makes a difference    

thanks for your help 

Hazel 

[Guest]

Further on the last, i have received from out lms team the instructions they follow to publish the capitvate unit. Captivate_Steps_to_publish_package

but im thinking its all ok and the problem lies with the creation (?) 

[Lilybiri]

You are publishing to HTML5, rollovers are NOT supported. They tell you to ignore it, but it could be the cause of your problems.  It is even possible that you have other items not supported, Please look at Project, HTML5 Tracker.

The pausing point of your Continue button (where I recommend just to move it 0,1sec to the left) can normally not be the origin of your problems. Try to take out the rollovers, and see if the problems continue.

[Lilybiri]

In that case, check the master slide you are using for those non-demo slides, and put the Next shape button on that master slide instead of on the main master slide. Indeed, you could learn a lot from my blog. Master slides, part of each theme, can save you manyworking hours if set up properly.

I see that you are not using groups. That could clean up your timeline a lot, and the advantage is that you can use commands like Hide and Show on groups.

[Guest]

Thank you so much for your help today. 

I will have to investigate the pausing, groups and other things mentioned this morning. 

In terms of publishing, i don't know what the answer is, and we would prefer not to take the interaction out as it is something the customer wants and their feedback is that it is a great addition to the eLearning, from the previous versions which were pure demonstration (boring!) I have sent your comments on to the team so at least they know why we get the issues and maybe they need to investigate publishing differently 

Cant thank you enough for today 

Many thanks Hazel 

[Lilybiri]

You don't need a rollover, you can replace it by a toggle button that shows/hides the explanation. That is the way you should proceed, not include unsupported features but replace them by foolproof features.

[Guest]

ok, now you're telling me about features that i don't know about! 

What is the point in having the features if we can't add them. 

[Lilybiri]

It works perfectly for SWF output, and there are still a lot of CP-users around who do use that (more standardized) output format. Lot of companies use old browsers with Flash support, some LMS's don't even allow HTML5 output yet. That explains why the feature is still around.

Show/hide is an old feature that still works perfectly. It can be done with a shared action:

1 action = 5 Toggle Buttons - Captivate blog

[Guest]

thanks for explanation , i will go back to the LMS team with that. 

I need to investigate further what features are supported for html5 if we are going to continue using that way of publishing, and then use those methods. Its very confusing because at the top of the dashboard number of lovely features such as roll overs, which are likely not to be supported with that method of publishing 

But the good thing with this conversation is i feel i have got to the root cause of our problems.. unsupported objects! and now i have until the next lot of edits and re records to figure out a new way of creating the units, using the blogs you have posted for me .

thankyou hazel