Stuck on Loading... screen -- Forever

[MTSpain]

We have a number of SCORM 1.2 courses published from Captivate 5 that are getting stuck on the grey Loading.. screen.

What is odd about this is that the course launches fine on initial launch.

If you then close after a couple of pages and relaunch, bookmarking works fine; it opens to the correct page.

If you complete the course and close, The content is marked as completed in the LMS.

IF you then relaunch, it takes you to the final page, which has a button to allow you to retake. That button works correctly and navigates to page 1.

If you then navigate a few pages in, close the course and attempt to relaunch, it always hangs at the Loading... page.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

Michael

[lecutas]

Steve/Guru,

Your points are well made and while I have no doubt that your advanced skills in this area allow you to overcome some of the issues with Captivate the vast majority of users in this forum do not have those skills.  That is not to say that Captivate is faulty because people lack skills, but some people have been virtually begging for a fix for months and months on this very forum and Adobe were extremely slow in coming forward with a fix.  I appreciate the varied nature of SCORM implementations but when ADOBE did identify a general fix they did not release it into the wild, or make it freely available until those beggers shamed them into dong so.  No updates via the usual update channels, in fact no updates of any kind whatever.  What changes there are in version 6 in my opinion amount to nothing more than the necessary updates needed to make version 5.5 work properly.  It is slow on the computer and it does not justify its hefty asking price.  I am happy that it works for you guys but I suspect the less technically able, who are looking for a non programming product will be disappointed to have paid for something that does not do that.

Lecutas.

[www_cpguru_com]

In all fairness to Adobe the majority of the problems with SCORM implementations actually comes from the LMS vendors and the relatively loose SCORM specification.

The best way to test if Adobe Captivate 5.5 or Adobe Captivate 6.0 is SCORM compliant is to create your course and upload it to SCORM Cloud (http://scorm.com/scorm-solved/scorm-cloud-features/). If your content works here (which Captivate content actually does) then the problem is not that Captivate outputs bad SCORM, but instead that your LMS has a poor implementation of SCORM.

Captivate 6 contains a completely rewamped SCORM engine with scripts and functionality supplied by Rustici (http://scorm.com/). Rustici is probably one of the most - if not the most - competent SCORM company in the world so if you are still not able to get Captivate 6 SCORM content to run in your LMS, then chances are that it is the LMS that is the problem. Many LMS's haven't implemented the full SCORM specification and while Captivate can report Interaction Data etc. there are some LMS's that are SCORM Complaint, but doesn't support Interaction Data. If Captivate tries to send interaction data and your LMS does not respond to it well, then the fault is with the LMS. That is why "Never send resume data" can be a valid solution for some LMS's - not because of Captivate doing something wrong, but simply because your LMS can't handle the SCORM calls that Captivate generates.

If you are having issues with Captivate SCORM content and your LMS then make sure that you are publishing to SCORM 1.2. This is the most basic of the SCORM specifications and will in 99.9% of the times be sufficient for deploying a course. This SCORM specification is also the most widely adopted and has been around for the longest time, minimizing the possibility of the LMS vendor not having implemented certain aspects of SCORM.

That being said I do fully agree that the files that Captivate 5.5 and below outputs when you publish to SCORM isn't exactly world class. The HTML and JavaScript files are full of redundant code, checks to see if you are running Windows 3.1, weird queries to find out if it should use external interface or not and then finally overrides the value with a static variable declaration etc. Not exactly what you would expect to see, but despite these things the content would still run fine in most LMS's.

In my book Captivate 6 is worth the upgrade price for non-technical users / SCORM people alone due to the new SCORM engine by Rustici.

And if you think that SCORM is bad then try working with AICC based LMS's.. The AICC specification consists of 9 separate AGR's (AICC Guidelines & Recommendations) but since there are 9 different AGR's the "AICC compliant" can mean a lot of different things since there are 9 differents AGR's to be compliant with. There are only 3 or 4 LMS vendors that actually have the stamp "AICC Certified" while there are several hundres that have been "SCORM Certified".

One could argue that Captivate outputs poor AICC content, but the actual problem might be that your LMS vendor is only supporting a limited number of the AICC AGR's.

Updates and speed seem to run fine on my two computers. I have an old Quad-core q6600 with 3.5GB Ram and Win XP and a Intel Core i7, with 16GB Ram and SSD HDD and it runs well on both machines. Of course it is much faster on the i7 machine, but it's still acceptable on the old Quad-core.

/Michael

[Writechick3]

I completely understand what you are explaining cpguru- HOWEVER- this is Adobe's product and I have worked with the SumTotal content developers for hours on end trying to figure out the loading problem. They point the finger at Adobe, Adobe points the finger back at the LMS vendor...meanwhile we developers stay frustrated and our users cannot view our eLearning modules! I have put every final product through the SCORM cloud and it 'works' with no errors...  Adobe professes that their product (Captivate) is best of breed- well, honestly after just updating to 5.5 in order to have the 5.0 bugs fixed and spending another 150.00 and we STILL have this same problem with the loading screen is just unacceptable. Now, they 'say' that the 6.0 version fixes the problem because they all of a sudden added in a new SCORM engine, I will have to see it to believe it! I have a loaner laptop that I'm testing it on because I don't trust Adobe enough to ever upgrade my projects to 6.0 without thoroughly testing their product on the LMS before purchasing.

I have used Captivate for years and to be required to upgrade for 350.00 just to fix what should have been a patch all along is ridiculous at best. I work in a huge organization and we depend on Captivate for the majority of our CBTs that we develop and as the lead ISD person I can tell you that I'm beyond frustrated with Adobe's "fixes" and upgrades because it seems as though they fix 2 things, then break 3- then we pay money and upgrade yet again???!  I don't care how this problem gets resolved or who is to 'blame' for the issue- I just know that as a developer we all would like this resolved! I enjoy using Captivate and the features are wonderful- but not when you cannot share the features with your end users because the module won't 'load'!

[TedWDF]

YEAH BABY.  I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU.  ADOBE might as well change their name to beta becuase nothin works as advertised. I am looking for another solution and something I can work in HTML5 so I can drop flash also.  Any ideas?

[lecutas]

Ted, try Adobe Captivate 6 - I don't think so...

[TedWDF]

Hey, thanks for reply,

Fair enough, but I upgraded to 5.5 because of the issues with 5.0. How

do I justify to management that I need 6.0 because I was wrong to ask them

for 5.5? Maybe I am being naïve (rare in a 60 year-old) but maybe Adobe

ought to step up to the plate and say: "We screwed up. If you bought

5.0/5.5 here is 6.0 for free." Seriously, I want a replacement, cause

this is BS. Everyone in the org (except for training dept) thinks an

employee has better things to do than take training. If the access to it

(ie LMS), the courseware performance, and ultimately the content don't

work together to make it simple, straightforward and hopefully meaningful

to the employee - who gets blamed? Adobe?? The LMS???

Guess again.

Senior Manager ISD and e-learning

BIOTRONIK

6024 Jean Rd.

Lake Oswego, Or. 97035

503.451.8108

www.biotronik.com

From:

lecutas <forums@adobe.com>

To:

TedWDF <ted.mckenna@biotronik.com>

Date:

07/03/2012 09:08 AM

Subject:

Stuck on Loading... screen -- Forever

Re: Stuck on Loading... screen -- Forever

created by lecutas in Quizzing/LMS - View the full discussion

Ted, try Adobe Captivate 6 - I don't think so...

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[Writechick3]

@TED- AMEN!!!!!  I've already 'tried' justifying 6.0 to my Director... no dice! So, as you said... now WE (the ISD devs) get the backlash from the bad software 'update' of 5.5. I think you are right- Adobe should give us 6.0 (those who upgraded to 5.5 from 5) the software for free- no doubt there will be other bugs that still need to be fixed anyway. I'm so glad to see others are just as frustrated as I am. I am feversihly looking at other products that can produce effective eLearning materials and although they may not have the bells and whistles, at least it's launchable via the LMS and doesn't get stuck 'loading' or doesn't stick during the quizzing if a user clicks the 'back' button (that was yet another problem in 5.0).

[TedWDF]

I gave up on captivate quizzes long ago and just use the dumbed down ones

in the LMS. Yeah I know that from ISD perspective the quiz (pretty useless

anyway) is now completely useless, but it satisfies a suit's requirement

that "We gotta test 'em". Not worth the hassle from LMS side to captivate

quiz. I am so freakin sick of Adobe. To think they are making me look bad

and I pay them. I already do this naturally. I don't need their help.

Hang in. Better days ahead. They gotta go belly up someday.

Senior Manager ISD and e-learning

BIOTRONIK

6024 Jean Rd.

Lake Oswego, Or. 97035

503.451.8108

www.biotronik.com

From:

Writechick3 <forums@adobe.com>

To:

TedWDF <ted.mckenna@biotronik.com>

Date:

07/03/2012 09:32 AM

Subject:

Stuck on Loading... screen -- Forever

Re: Stuck on Loading... screen -- Forever

created by Writechick3 in Quizzing/LMS - View the full discussion

@TED- AMEN!!!!! I've already 'tried' justifying 6.0 to my Director... no

dice! So, as you said... now WE (the ISD devs) get the backlash from the

bad software 'update' of 5.5. I think you are right- Adobe should give us

6.0 (those who upgraded to 5.5 from 5) the software for free- no doubt

there will be other bugs that still need to be fixed anyway. I'm so glad

to see others are just as frustrated as I am. I am feversihly looking at

other products that can produce effective eLearning materials and although

they may not have the bells and whistles, at least it's launchable via the

LMS and doesn't get stuck 'loading' or doesn't stick during the quizzing

if a user clicks the 'back' button (that was yet another problem in 5.0).

Replies to this message go to everyone subscribed to this thread, not

directly to the person who posted the message. To post a reply, either

reply to this email or visit the message page: [

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4536227#4536227]

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[Guest]

Me too. I changed completely to Articulate Studio 09. Much more better and easy.

[TedWDF]

Really!!

I used to use Presenter a while back and found it unstable and kinda

kludgie (kloogie? kloogee? wtf). So I went to Captivate and invested in

the learning curve. 09 is better huh? Maybe I'll give her a try. Thx.

Wait, that's another adobe product- right? Man, it's like paying for a

benz, getting a tata and what you really need is a honda.

Senior Manager ISD and e-learning

BIOTRONIK

6024 Jean Rd.

Lake Oswego, Or. 97035

503.451.8108

www.biotronik.com

[www_cpguru_com]

@ Lecutas:

I can't see anywhere which LMS you are trying to deploy your content to. Is it SumTotal as well?

I doubt that Adobe is able to make a general fix for this problem, because the problem is most likely different from LMS to LMS. 

While testing Captivate 6 did you then try and publish some SCORM Content and upload it to your LMS?

@ Writechick3:

I'm not saying that Adobe Captivate is the best product in the world to do SCORM content. The thing is that with every single rapid development tool that deploys to SCORM you will have problems in one LMS or another. When I do freelance work with Captivate (or any other authoring tool) the deliverable is always that the course will play in SCORM Cloud. This is because it is widely accepted as the autority on testing SCORM content. Making courses work in different LMS's is pain in... but this unfortunately applies to more or less every Rapid Development tool and even custom courses built in Flash  or HTML5 from scratch. Where Adobe fails is that the marketing of Captivate makes it sound like it is a breeze to deploy content in your LMS and that is unfortunately not always the case.

One thing to keep in mind with SumTotal LMS is that it doesn't work with IE9 "standard Mode" which is the default IE9 settings. In order to view content in SumTotal with IE9 it needs to be run in "Quirks mode". I'm pretty sure that CP5.5 content runs in Quirks mode by default, but you might want to check up on that. In Captivate 6 that means that you are not able to publish courses to HTML5 and use SumTotal LMS to deploy, as the LMS only supports IE9 Quirks mode, which is not HTML5 valid. However SWF content from Adobe Captivate 6 will run in SumTotal LMS and I seem to recall that this was actually one of the LMS's that Adobe tested CP6 with (along with Blackboard, Plateau, SABA and Moodle) so you should be fine with Captivate 6 SCORM content.

You might want to try out Philips rewamped SCORM templates for Adobe Captivate 5.5. These SCORM templates are much more efficient than the default (error filled) Adobe Captivate Templates, so perhaps this can fix your problem. You can get the rewamped templates here; https://github.com/pipwerks/Captivate-Publishing-Templates-Redux

As for the upgrade price for Captivate 6 I do agree that it is way to expensive. Also - the fact that a subscription is cheaper than a boxed upgrade is pretty sad, since many corporate clients cannot use the subcription model. I do think that there are much more to Captivate 6 than just some rewamped SCORM templates. The HD Video recording is pretty neat, the new Interactions, new quizzing features (scope, remediation etc.) and smart objects. Publish to HTML5 will probably also ring someones bells although I'm not a big fan of HTML5 at this point in time.

So.. If I were you I would try the rewamped SCORM templates mentioned above. Publish your course to SCORM 1.2 and enable "Never send resume data". Also - take a look here at Infosemantics page about Captivate and SumTotal: http://www.infosemantics.com.au/adobe-captivate-learning-managment-system-lms-guide/sumtotal

/Michael

[Writechick3]

Thank you CPGURU... I have played with the Phillips revamped SCORM templates. I am going to continue my Cap 6 testing on my loaner laptop and see how far I get before running into issues with the LMS. We run IE8 as our Corporate standard and have worked tirelessly with SumTotal on why the courses won't load for some users (pop-up blockers were turned off, java checked, Flash version checked etc.) it's just cumbersome to always have to troubleshoot why the course will not load and with over 4000 users as you can imagine, it gets bothersome that our courseware keeps running into the same issues. We also have other modules running off the LMS from ourside vendors (such as SAI Gobal) and we never  have any issues with their content loading. So once again, I go back to the fact that Captivate is the bug!

I thank you for your ideas/advice/insights. This forum board is a wonderful place to relieve the anxiety and at least get some peace of mind that others are experiencing the same issues. I hope someone that cares at Adobe will read through these comments and make some much needed changes to how they perform updates and bug fixes and the prices they charge!

[lecutas]

@CPGURU

We use the Kalidus LMS and while I am a novice developer, our L&D team do use professional developers who have in fact tried and given up using Captivate due to the issues.  I have persisted and tinkered with the manifest settings and applied the 5.5 hotfix.  While some users are still experiencing the 'loading' issue by and large the issue is resolved.

I am wary of trying out Captivate 6 for fear of the issue arising once again.  As for the remainder of points I think Writechick3 has said everything i was going to.  I do accept your point however that Captivate may at times be between a rock and a hard place with the SCORM implemetations across various systems, but like Writechick I think if Captivate is to keep its loyal if strained customer base it needs to look closely at how they treat us and reconsider whether there should be an alternative to a paid upgrade to version 6.  I didn't publish anything in version 6 due to giving up mainly for the slow speed of the package.  Given that you and others have not experienced these issues I may reconsider and download the trial to my PC (as opposed to my laptop) and test it further.  I like the idea of the SCORM Cloud and had not heard of that before.

Grateful for the above tips.

Lecutas

[Steve Howard, ACP]

Adobe added a whole new LMS-publish implementation to CP6 for exactly this

reason. I understand your cynicism, because it hurts to get burnt. One

thing I can say sincerely about the Captivate team is that they do care and

they are working hard to get the product perfect for all users.

Steve

[Sankaram]

Hi Lecutas,

        May I know what are those operations in Captivate 6 doesn't work and confusing? Is the slowness observed while doing any specific set of operations? If there is any specific issue, we will try to resolve.

Thanks,

Sankaram.

[lecutas]

@Sankaram

Much obliged, I am going to download the test version again and I will send you a report of my findings.