Video no longer plays when previewed in browser or LMS

[Mary2918100550rz]

Hello. I'm at my wit's end with this one.

A slide video in .mp4 format plays fine in captivate timeline preview, but when previewed in browser or scorm cloud, the file is a black rectangle. Video audio continues to play, but there is no video. 

A month ago this issue was occuring and after filing a support ticket with Adobe, and not getting any resolution from them on it, somehow it miraculously stopped happening, so I moved on. I have no idea what ultimately fixed the issue. Then after needing to add some new audio, thinking now I was finally ready to release my module, I did one final save and publish to check things in Scorm Cloud before uploading to our LMS. Well, the issue has returned. I've tried: renaming the video file and reinserting (which has been a workround for audio files that do not play after the first instance), I've tried exiting captivate and rebooting my computer, checking for updates. I've tried deleting the video content area from the slide and rebuilding that section, I've tried running the video file through Media Encoder (again, as I am sure it was done initially). 

Has anyone else encountered this bug and determined a cause or a reliable workaround? 

Thanks in advance. 

Mary

This is a maddening bug. I

Well, it's back! 

[Lilybiri]

You are on version 12, correct?

Video is a slide video? It loads very slowly compared with older versions, especially if it is a long video. How big is it? Which browser do you use to view the published output? DId you try to re-encode with Adobe Media Encoder and change the settings so that the file size decreases?

[Mary2918100550rz]

@Lilybiri thank you and sorry for the delayed reply. I was OOO on Friday. 

I had already run the video through ME as part of my development process.

I actually got this to work, but cannot tell you why or how. It's definitely a bug. I filed a support request and told them the steps I used to get it to work:

1. I duplicated the slide with slide video. 

2. On the duplicated slide, I deleted the slide video object. 

3. I reinserted the slide video object, then reimported the video. 

4. Saved, and then Published and the video was visible again. 

You might be wondering, well, why didn't you just do that on the original slide? I did and it did not work. It would only work on the duplicated slide. So strange and makes zero sense, as so many of these issues so often do. Sigh. 

Thank you for your willingness to come to the rescue!

Mary

[Mary2918100550rz]

To answer your questions, though: Yes, on Captivate 12, it's a 90 second video. It is a small-ish video that used to play no problem and just all of a sudden, nope. 

[Lilybiri]

I don't use that version professionally and one of the reasons, besides the many crashes and limited feature set, is that corruption happens a lot more than with version 11.5.5.553. What you describe sounds like that original slide being corrupted and your workflow is the recommended one. 

[Andrew Chemey]

@Mary2918100550rz ,

Can you try to create a new Captivate [12] file with just the video slide and try to reproduce. Consistently. If it is easy to reproduce, create a new file with a different MP4.

-Andrew

[Mary2918100550rz]

Thanks for the suggestion @Andrew Chemey The video in question did work initially and then unexpectedly stopped showing up in output. I did try to insert any other file from the assets store and I don't recall whether that worked or not, I tried so many things. For now I do have a consistent workaround, just like I do for the audio not playing after second save...it's clunky, but works until they fix whatever is going on under the hood. Thanks for your input!

Best,

Mary