Long Running Script in Preview

[chrisb31732424]

Hello All,

A SME was unable to complete a SCORM 2004 3rd Ed file, so I first replicated the issue in the LMS (Adobe Learning Manager). Next I went into Captivate and looked at the slide where he discovered the problem. The slide itself does not have anything unexpected in its objects, actions, etc. that would cause the issue, which is simply that when all of the 4 buttons with answers in them are not executing the "Jump To Slide" action they're all assigned (navigating to 4 different slides for particular-mistake-specific remediation).

I removed all pauses from buttons, and rearranged slide orders to utilize the "Go To Next Slide" action instead of "Jump To Slide," even though neither should matter in theory. FINALLY, after a dozen guesses (and previews of the project) at different things it could be, I clicked the button with the correct answer in it (which is triggering all objects not be able to be clicked any more) and sat in frustration for about 30 seconds racking my brain when the attached screenshot with its error message at the bottom of the screen came up that reads "localhost is not responding due to a long-running script" and gives me a "Stop Script" button. When I clicked Stop Script, it jumped to the proper slide and all worked well.

I'm no developer, so I don't know what could cause this, but I started trying to locate a root cause within the Captivate file by Previewing "From This Slide" at each of the sections of the material and working backwards. The previews ran perfectly up until I was previewing the entire Project. The same issue happened when I used the Preview Project, as well as when I previewed "From This Slide" while highlighting Slide #1.

I then deleted Slide #1, which was largely window dressing, thinking that the slide was corrupted for one reason or another. When I previewed the Project, I ran into the same problem on with the long running script.

Assuming that the long running script is causing the same problem in the Captivate Preview function as it is in the published SCORM files (without the error message coming through), I am at a loss on how to resolve it, especially since we used the same template for many other SCORM files of identical design that are working as expected in the same LMS.

Any ideas or experience with this would be much appreciated, thank you in advance to anyone that can help!

[RodWard]

If this is happening on a slide where a Conditional Advanced Action is being executed, the most likely reason for the issue is a logic flaw somewhere in that Advanced Action.  

Can you provide us with more information about that condtional action?  E.g, screenshots of the output when you click the Preview Action button on the Advanced Action dialog.

[chrisb31732424]

@RodWard Thanks for the reply. There are no Conditional Advanced Actions being executed on the slide (screenshot attached).

For the slide in question (Question 13), the On Enter Action  and Exit Action are both "No Action." Basically, we're waiting for the student to choose an answer, which works on 12 identically-setup question slides... Unlucky #13 is the problem child!

In the Slide Objects screenshot, the 4 large answer choice buttons and the Previous Question button (top Fluid Box) all have an On Success Action of: Jump To Slide [X]. The slides that the answer choice buttons jump to do not have Advanced Actions being executed, they are all set up with On Enter: Continue and On Exit: Pause.

 All buttons in the top Fluid Box (except for the Previous Question button) have an On Success Action of: Execute JavaScript with a script window similar to this one (Current Window😞

window.open("https://abc123.com/practice/id_code/Chart_1.pdf", '_blank', 'height=500,width=1080,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes');

On the Question 13 slide, these buttons pull up the proper PDFs until one of the answer choice buttons is clicked, which is when all freezes for 30 seconds or so before the long script error message appears.

The only Conditional Advanced Action in this file is a Pause_Button AA (screenshots attached), which is not used on the slide in question (only remedation material slides). In all of the testing completed today, I never once triggered the Pause_Button AA.

If all that doesn't add up, is there anything else that can cause this error message?

[Lilybiri]

Some real important information is missing. Which exact version of Captivate are you using? The full version number, please, as you can find under Help, About Captivate.

Second question: are you on a non-responsive or a responsive project? If it is responsive, did you use Fluid Boxes or Breakpoint views? 

If it is a non-responsive project: did you preview with F11, Preview HTML in Browser? That is the only real valid preview in that case, contrary to responsive projects with Fluid Boxes. If you rest it with F11, didn't you get the same issue? Which browser(s) did you use?

The Preview window of an advanced action (as Rod and myself would like to see) can be opened using this button:

Sorry if you did know that, but around 90% of CP users ignore its existence (and a lot more of features of the AA dialog box).

Last question: you talk about a 'template', which is a word often used for many things. I just hope you are not talking about a 'cptl' file in Captivate, which is very buggy. Moreover if the theme used in this template dates from versions ago, it could also be the cause of issues.

[chrisb31732424]

Hi @Lilybiri , thanks for the reply! I'm definitely part of the 90% ignoring AA dialog box features... and even ignoring @RodWard 's request for that info (by accident). Here's all the info requested:

-Captivate Version: 2019 Release 11.8.0.586

-Project Type: Responsive and using Fluid Boxes (haven't used Breakpoint views before)

-AA Previews:: Screenshots attached. The only Conditional AA of the 3 is the Pause_Button AA.

In previewing the AAs, I noticed that in the RetakeChapter AA we left the Execute Javascript: cp.resetQuizData() that you guided me to replace in other files a couple of weeks ago. I've left it in there for now in case it's part of the problem, but normally I'd get rid of that since discovering the side effects of using that JS command.

-Template reference: not a .cptl file, just a basis for the navigation for the remediation relationships/actions. I was saving it as a new file, then revising as necessary. I have not applied a Theme to this project file, but it's possible that the first version of this file was created in an older version of Captivate (which has been the basis for all 4 of these project files that are acting up). These project files were started 3 months ago, finalized 3 weeks ago, and Captivate is supposed to be auto-updating for me.

Thanks again for the guidance!

[Lilybiri]

I wonder if this is another bug in 11.8, have seen a lot of problems mentioned for that version. 

You always have a Theme in any project, I wanted to know if the theme was a custom theme ? From your description I understand it was created in an older version. Was that version 11.0 or even an older version. Themes had a significant update with version 11.5.

I have seen your Toggle conditional action before (probably in another thread), even offered a link to my Play/Pause button tutorial.

The ReplaySlide action will not reset the slide, but maybe that is not necessary.  The RetakeChapter has that famous JS command  which caused you problems in the other thread. Do you need it? 

To see the full picture of the problem slide, can you post a screenshot of the expanded part of the Advanced Interaction panel for that slide? That way we can see which actions are triggered by which events. 

[chrisb31732424]

@Lilybiri @RodWard I can't be sure when Captivate updated itself to version 11.5 or 11.8, or the timing of these files being worked in a particular version. Sorry, we just don't keep those kind of records. But if someone can explain the process, I'm happy to roll back Captivate to an older version if that'll help ID if it's a bug in 11.8. But I have published 200+ SCORM files in the past couple weeks, which I know I have been on 11.8 for, and none of them have run into this problem- it's literally 4 out of 100+ unique project files (many had to be republished twice recently).

I guess I'm using a couple different custom themes in this project. I took the stock Captivate Theme and created the backgrounds, added/tweaked Fluid Boxes, etc., (as opposed to loading a .cptm file). When I copied and pasted slides in from other project files, it looks like those themes were imported into this project file, although I've never paid any attention to that happening to date.

Play/Pause & ReplaySlide AAs: we have 400+ SCORM files being used with those two AAs in place, but none of them have run into this issue before. I just previewed a couple of them in both IE and Chrome and they are functioning as expected. Honestly, if those AAs aren't causing the problem, the thought of replacing those AAs is a pretty daunting time commitment.

Chrome is my default browser across the board, yet Captivate has always previewed in IE for me. Am I missing a setting in Captivate? That's not a priority knowing that I can copy-paste it into Chrome for now. When I did that, I ran into the same issue when previewing the project (screenshots attached). Although Chrome did not give me the ability to Stop Script like IE did, and I waited 10 minutes for it to become responsive again before giving up.

On the cp.resetQuizData(), it's hard to tell if I need it or not because the Completion Criteria is set to Quiz Passed, and the only scored quiz slide is a T/F slide at the end of the Chapter. That slide can only be reached after all unscored questions are answered correctly, so without the ability to get to that slide, I can't tell if it's necessary. But I don't think I can't leverage the Retake Quiz function/button like on the ones from a couple weeks ago because there's only the one scored quiz slide at the end, and the student would be confused since they are told there's "no quiz in this Chapter."

This design is one we use for our Chapters that do not have a 10 or 15 question scored quiz included. That scored slide at the end has an On Success: Go to Next Slide (which gets them to the 10 point minimum passing score and allows them to exit), and Last Attempt: Execute Advanced Action (RetakeChapter). My fear was that if I set the Last Attempt Action to Jump to Slide 1, when they re-completed the Chapter and returned to the scored quiz slide, it would have their previous answer pre-populated and unable to answer it. For whatever reason, we haven't experienced the limitations we ran into with other project files containing a score quiz as with this setup of only one scored quiz question. It has worked for dozens of project files to date, but I haven't been able to confirm that with this particular project file since I can't get to that scored quiz slide.

I did take this JS command out of the RetakeChapter AA (but did not delete the AA from the project file) and I still experienced the long script in both IE and Chrome.

Sorry for the length, just want to make sure I provide the spark that lights the solution!

[Lilybiri]

You need to understand that it is very hard to find out the cause of your problems without checking out the project itself. I just tried to offer some ideas as I did in the previous thread.

Your statement about the Themes is worrying to me.  Since 11.5 it is possible to use multiple themes in one project and that is probably the case for you. In some consultancy jobs I discovered that this can lead to serious issues although I had too little examples to figure out exactly why. I suspect that with multiple themes it is very possible that master slides with the same name are within the same project and CP gets 'confused' and chokes on it. Same can happen when there are tons of duplicate advanced actions and variables. Had to debug that type of problems a lot of times. 

[chrisb31732424]

First, I appreciate the time you're spending in pointing me in a few directions to check out, didn't mean to imply otherwise! I'm happy to provide the file privately and discuss what that entails, as I'm beginning to think this issue is over my head and I'm on a serious time crunch. If you'd like to email me at CB4@industryacademy.com, happy to go over particulars.

On the Themes, this is something I haven't ever considered in copying-and-pasting slides from another project file. If this is the problem, do you think it requires figuring out how to get this file widdled down from 3 Themes to 1? I wouldn't even know what that would entail, so might it be a full rebuild at that point?

[Lilybiri]

I sent you a private message.

[chrisb31732424]

Not sure if this is relevant to Responsive projects or not, but the Preview function auto-publishes to Internet Explorer. However, I (and the SME) were using Chrome when running into the problem in the LMS.

[Lilybiri]

I will have a closer look at your previous answer but first of all: do NOT use IE, which is not even supported by MS anymore. It is the worst browser for JS support. Can you please try another browser. Either you change the default browser, or you copy the link in IE to another browser: Edge, Chrome, Firefox. Avoid Safari as well, not very good.

Do you have the same problems during Preview?