Upgrading projects from Cap 8 to Cap 9 sacrifices resume ability??

Report · Oct 19, 2016

Who else has this problem? Surely we are not the only ones.

We are attempting to update existing Cap 8 (Flash/HTML5, SCORM 1.2) projects on our LMS to Cap 9 (HTML5 only, SCORM 1.2) versions. When we upload Cap 9 versions of the same projects into our existing LMS units, the projects don't load. After troubleshooting quite a bit, and eventually working with our LMS provider, there seems to be a difference in the outputs between 8 and 9 having to do with progress tracking.

Here's what we heard from our LMS provider. They suggest we report this to Adobe support:

"When the user progresses in the Captivate 8 content, the content stores a value in the SCORM's “suspend_data” field like the following:

B1A%24nP1A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP000AA0000C-1A0DQText_Entry_Box_1BATcpQuizInfoStudentIDBAVcpQuizInfoStudentNameAPFeleki%2CKleoniki

When Captivate 9 is used, then the value is almost the same, but includes an additional string at the end:

B1A%24nP1A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP0A%24nP000AA0000C-1A0EQText_Entry_Box_1BATcpQuizInfoStudentIDBAVcpQuizInfoStudentNameAPFeleki%2CKleonikiQcpQuizHandledAllBA$_#-#_$

Notice that the 2 values are almost identical, but the latter ends at QcpQuizHandledAllBA$_#-#_$

The error comes from the fact that Captivate 9 expects this value, but progress stored with Captivate 8 doesn’t return it. If we manually append the missing string, everything works as expected. Otherwise, when it’s missing, a javascript error inside the file CPM.js happens, at the point where it expects this string."

When testing this scenario on SCORM Cloud, we get these parser warning, but the project does load (it just starts at the beginning of the project rather than resuming.):

The external metadata referenced at /courses/BBFTD31IRC/C8_FlashandHTML5_4.1_intro_to_ordering_and_optimizations8b93f78b-d3fa-4a8f-a776-7421664fef8c/0\metadata.xml could not be opened. The specific exception was: java.io.FileNotFoundException: /courses/BBFTD31IRC/C8_FlashandHTML5_4.1_intro_to_ordering_and_optimizations8b93f78b-d3fa-4a8f-a776-7421664fef8c/0
(Is a directory).
The external metadata referenced at /courses/BBFTD31IRC/C8_FlashandHTML5_4.1_intro_to_ordering_and_optimizations8b93f78b-d3fa-4a8f-a776-7421664fef8c/0\metadata.xml could not be opened. The specific exception was: java.io.FileNotFoundException: /courses/BBFTD31IRC/C8_FlashandHTML5_4.1_intro_to_ordering_and_optimizations8b93f78b-d3fa-4a8f-a776-7421664fef8c/0
(Is a directory).
The external metadata referenced at /courses/BBFTD31IRC/C8_FlashandHTML5_4.1_intro_to_ordering_and_optimizations8b93f78b-d3fa-4a8f-a776-7421664fef8c/0\metadata.xml could not be opened. The specific exception was: java.io.FileNotFoundException: /courses/BBFTD31IRC/C8_FlashandHTML5_4.1_intro_to_ordering_and_optimizations8b93f78b-d3fa-4a8f-a776-7421664fef8c/0
(Is a directory).
The file referenced by the href attribute could not be found. href = index_scorm.html

Our lessons are set with "Never Send Resume Data" unchecked. After learning about the code difference between 8 and 9, we tried checking "Never Send Resume Data" on the Cap 9 version of the course, and that resolved the course loading issue, but then we lose the ability to resume the course where we left off.

So, is this a bug? Should we report it?

Or, if we must check "Never Send Resume Data" to make the Cap 9 versions work in our existing LMS units, is there another way to have the lesson resume where the user left off?

Thanks for your shared wisdom!

Report · Oct 19, 2016

Yes, it looks like a bug. Log it with Adobe.

Try creating a very simple NEW project CPTX in Captivate 9, not upgraded from Cp8. Add a couple of True/False quiz questions and set it up with your usual SCORM settings, then test this module in your LMS to see if a project started in Captivate 9 can use Resume Data correctly.

If it does, then your issue is ONLY with upgraded projects from Cp8. When upgrading, a possible workaround might be to copy / paste all slides from an upgraded project into a new Cp9 shell to see if that fixes the Resume Data bug.

Report · Oct 26, 2016

Thanks, Rod. We have submitted the bug.

We tried your suggestions and unfortunately, neither resolved the issue. New projects started in Cap 9 will not load in an LMS unit that was originally created with a Cap 8 project. And, copying and pasting slides into a new Cap 9 shell still won't load when uploaded to an existing LMS unit that was originally created with a Cap 8 project.

We do not want to create all new LMS units because this wipes out all of our interaction and course completion data.

We will stay in Cap 8 for now and just republish everything to HTML5 only, which is our immediate goal. If we have to, we will upgrade to Cap 9 eventually and turn on "Never send resume data". Better to sacrifice resume ability than lose all our LMS data.

Fingers crossed Adobe will fix this.

Report · Oct 26, 2016

It's never usually a good idea to mix and match SCORM modules created in different versions of Captivate. Any changes in the underlying code output by the newer version will not be compatible with the older versions.

Report · Nov 07, 2016

We are having the same problem since we have updated from Cp 9.0.0.223 to 9.0.2.437.