When loading a PowerPoint file into Captivate 2017, The program crashes on the last slide.

Report · Nov 21, 2017

Window displayed: Adobe Captivate has stopped working.

A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

This happens on subsequent restarts and NO solution is displayed. This software is very unstable and incredibly frustrating when working to a very tight timeline to get the finished product to our LMS.

Report · Nov 21, 2017

Captivate is not normally unstable like this. It would seem that the PPT deck might contain some object that is corrupting your Captivate project.

If you are now unable to restart Captivate successfully, I suggest you reset your Preferences folder. Then when Captivate restarts, try importing the same PPT but selecting smaller groups of slides each time until you find the slide or slides that seems to cause this issue. Then you should be able to search those slides to locate what causes the incompatibility.

For future reference, you should start looking at ways of removing PPT from your e-learning workflow as it severely restricts what you can do in Captivate, especially now that everyone in the industry is moving towards HTML5 output as the standard.

Report · Nov 21, 2017

Thanks Rod, I have tried resetting the Preferences and when cleaning out the cache nothing changes.

The lockup occurs on every training module i.e. 5 Tried so far and always when last slide is being converted irrespective of slide numbers.

The only difference is, in Captivate I have constructed 2 slides with instructions on how to navigate the course and the last slide on directions on how to access the Module test.

When trying to load the Power Point file into Captivate these 2 slides are not inserted until the PP File has been converted.

I totally agree that it is much better to construct the course in native Captivate format but this training requires 13 modules to be reformatted by mid December so don't have a lot of time available, as well as do normal classroom training.

Our IT Gentlemen are looking at the problem tonight so I will try your fix first thing tomorrow morning by initially loading smaller slide numbers.

Sincere thanks for your prompt reply.

John

Report · Nov 21, 2017

One other suggestion. Anytime you are working with PPT in Captivate you need to make absolutely sure that you are launching Captivate with Run As Administrator privileges. This is NOT the same as being an Administrator on your PC.

Since you mention that you are in a corporate environment and you have "IT People" on hand, it's quite possible that you are not allowed to have admin privileges to your own PC. So one debugging option to try is to get one of your IT people to log onto your PC, set Captivate to Run As Administrator in their user profile, and then attempt the same task importing the same PPT that always seems to crash your Captivate instance. If it turns out that the IT person doesn't have the same issue, then you can pretty much assume yours is crashing due to a shortage of user privileges on your particular profile.

Report · Nov 22, 2017

I'm frustrated to read here that Captivate doesn't work well with Powerpoint when it was the heralded ability of Captivate to import PPT files, and its 'integration' with PPT, that was one factor in buying it! For me, no matter which PPT file I try to convert using the 'new project create from powerpoint option' in Captivate 2017, it crashes giving me a 'fatal error' (without an error number). Additionally it is glacially slow for simple actions such as adding a Text Box or a Quiz slide, AND it refuses to wrap text in a text box...can you resolve these issues Rod?

Report · Nov 22, 2017

First make sure you are launching Captivate with Run As Administrator privileges. That's very important for best results.

Next, if your PPT deck is a PPTX and you are having issues, save it (in PowerPoint) as a PPT instead and try importing that.

If your PPT deck is VERY large, the crashing could be due to your system running out of resources. So try just importing half the slides instead and see if that is successful.

Regarding your other issues about running slowly, are you on a PC or MAC?

Report · Nov 22, 2017

The Powerpoint decks that have been crashing are only 35 slides. / I see you answered elsewhere to Run As Administrator but this was never mentioned before. I will be using the product far more than anyone...is there a solution that doesn't require me to work through IT every time I want to use Captivate and powerpoint together? / How about the other issues? Why wont Text boxes wrap? That cannot be a powerpoint issue because I created the Quiz in Captivate from scratch. / Why is Captivate so slow (I'm using Windows 10, IE 11)?

Report · Nov 22, 2017

Okay, they were PPTX files. Resaved as PPT and tried again...same fatal error message...this time there was a preceding message of "failed to load data" around slide 21 and then I got the "fatal error" and it crashed. /I'm not seeing where to select "Run as administrator"...any insights on how to set that up? Thanks

Report · Nov 22, 2017

You can Google how to set up a Windows app to Run As Administrator, but all I usually do is locate the app in the Program Files, right click to view Properties, then select the check box in one of the tabs to Run As Administrator.

If your PPT is still also crashing the app, then it's likely you have some object on one of the slides being imported (around the point where it crashes) that is tripping up the import process. Look through your PPT slides and see if anything on those slides stands out as non-standard. Try deselecting any suspicious slides before importing to see if that helps isolate where the conflict occurs.

Report · Nov 22, 2017

If you're going to use Captivate and ask questions on this forum you will need to become more familiar with the correct terminology and object names.

What you are referring to as Text Boxes are actually Text ENTRY Boxes in Captivate. By default they don't wrap. If you want to allow for larger amounts of text on multiple lines, select the object then look in Properties > Actions > Display and select the box for Show Scrollbar. (I'm pretty sure that bit WOULD be in the Adobe Help files.)

I'm also on Win10 and Captivate runs fine for me. But you are in a corporate network and I have no knowledge of what limitations that may be placing on your system, as well as not knowing whether your PC is particularly powerful or not. Captivate is a very 'hungry' app and requires some decent computing power.

Report · Nov 26, 2017

Warm Greetings Rod,

My IT department took over the Computer and to help Captivate 10 operate within the RAM and memory installed on the machine, everything was *cleaned Out * that would cause interference, removed from the computer.

The IT department re-imaged the desktop and reinstalled the Captivate Program.

With full Administrator permissions etc, the Administrator had the same result as previously reported: Complete crash loading the last few slides of a 24 slide Power Point training module. He tried 3 modules with the same result.

Like your previous user, I will be using the Captivate program extensively to change our classroom training across to a CBT format and do not have the time available to sit watching this expensive software NOT perform as advertised.

Please refer to the screen shots as recorded this morning.

Best regards

John

Report · Nov 26, 2017

I cannot see any screenshots in your post. You need to use the option on the toolbar to insert them.

Sorry to hear that you are still having issues with loading PPT decks. I can assure you that Captivate would NORMALLY be able to import a PPT slide deck much bigger than the one you are talking about.

I would suggest you try loading a different PPT deck, not keep using the one you have been trying so far. If the issue is due to something in that particular PPT, then you won't get a different result. If I were having your issue, I would be creating a brand new PPT deck, adding 24 slides with more or less nothing on them, and trying to import that. If that IS successful, then it would confirm the possibility that the real underlying issue is something about that PPT.

If Captivate still will NOT import even a stripped down 24 slide PPT, then the issue is definitely with your PC. I have encountered issues in the past where a stripped down corporate OS is missing some software components or drivers that prevent Captivate from working seamlessly.

Report · Nov 26, 2017

One thing caught my attention in your last post. You said that the IT department stripped everything off the PC so that Captivate would be able to operate within the RAM and memory installed on the PC and "cleaned out" anything that might interfere with Captivate running.

Exactly how much RAM and hard drive space DOES your PC have?

Do you have Captivate set up so that the Default Locations listed in Preferences are ONLY pointing to folders on your local C drive?

Report · Nov 27, 2017

Greetings Rod,

As explained in previous post, the IT department tried using 3 different modules of up to 23 slides with the same crash results.

To answer your questions above:

My drive is a network drive 3TB, RAM is 10GB.

Please note the screen shots below: I loaded a short Power point file of 16 slides. I deselected 11 slides and loaded the 1st slide and 4 last slides and it doesn't matter which slides I have selected, I get the same result: CRASH when loading the last slide. I can send you the Power point module for you to test on your machine if that helps? But currently this version of Captivate is not working as all the hype

suggests. 😞

Best regards

John

Report · Nov 27, 2017

So when you say that your "drive is a network drive" of 3 TB, does that mean that you do NOT have an actual local hard drive on your computer but your setup is actually some kind of 'thin client'?

If so, then Captivate's Default Locations shown in Preferences would NOT be pointing to a local hard drive but would be pointing perhaps to a virtual drive on a network?

If the above is true, then I think we may have found your problem. Captivate is not designed to work the way you have it set up.

Report · Nov 29, 2017

Morning Rod,

I have stripped 1 Power Point Module and rebuilt in Captivate Format with out any conversion.

Nowhere in the Captive advertising does it say that it will only work in a dedicated *C* Drive installation.

I have set up the Preferences to save to and access my *H* Drive on the network and that is where the IT department have installed the Captivate Software.

All of the Previous Captivate 5 thru 9 versions have been set up in the same way and have worked without problems.

As soon as I have the dedicated File built with animations and embedded Video I will report back with the results.

Best regards

Report · Nov 29, 2017

No the Captivate 'advertising' or marketing materials are never going to give you that level of detail about installation requirements. But the fact that Captivate should ONLY be set up to work locally from your computer's own hard drives is a well-known fact that has been often stated on this forum and frequently blogged about.

See these links:

Setting up Preferences in Adobe Captivate | Infosemantics Pty Ltd

http://www.infosemantics.com.au/adobe-captivate-troubleshooting/setting-up-your-computer-to-work-wit...

Report · Nov 29, 2017

So it seems from the information we are now seeing that your IT department has installed captivate on a network drive.

If I were you, I would be expecting further issues with this setup. It's not recommended.

Report · Dec 05, 2017

Warm Greetings Rod,

Correction; I have been in contact with my IT experts and have been advised that Captivate is indeed installed installed on the desktop *C* Drive. Evidently the C-Drive was removed from the users visual screen to force anyone using the computer to save their work to the network computers. IT didn't want the C-Drive being loaded with personal clutter. So to answer your statement above, Captivate is installed on the C-Drive. IT are going to uninstall the program and install on another dedicated computer to see if that fixes the crash problem. This may take a couple of days so I will report back on progress.

Report · Dec 05, 2017

Tell IT that when they install Captivate they must also make sure that the Preferences > Default Locations point to two different folders that are also on the C drive and you must be launching Captivate using Run As Administrator privileges, otherwise you will continue to have issues.

Additionally, you should NOT be pulling your CPTX projects directly into Captivate from a network drive and saving back directly to a network drive. All CPTX project files you work on should be in a local C drive folder. I understand their reasons for wanting people to save to the network, but unless you can see the C drive folders and save to and from them, then your problems will not get better.