Captivate 2019 crash on file open

[jons63257627]

Our company has a huge log of captivate files from a previous versions. According to the wiki these files should all be forward-compatible. Captivate loads up fine, but I can't open any files without a crash. Any thoughts?

[RodWard]

When you say that the Captivate source files are from a 'previous version', do you know which specific version that is?

If these files are .cp rather than .cptx then they must be from Captivate 4 or earlier.  And if that is the case, then you will not be able to open them with any Captivate version later than Cp6.

If the files are indeed .cptx, then they still might be too far back in the history of Captivate to be compatible with newer versions that have changed a lot of the structure and coding that lies underneath the surface.

If they are too old for Cp 2019 to open, you may need to get hold of an older trial version/s of Captivate and use that to open and update the files.  Eventually you may be able to open them with Cp 2019.  However, be advised that you mayed to do quite a lot of upgrade work on the files before you will be able to publish them out to HTML5. 

Take a look a this post: http://www.infosemantics.com.au/adobe-captivate/convert-swf-courses-to-html5

So, what version are the originals? 

[jons63257627]

Thanks @RodWard, I believe a lot of the files were made in Captivate 8 or 9, and all are cptx files. Is there a way to check the Cap version in the metadata?

[Gaanf]

You can check what's given as 'generatorVersion' in 'project.txt', which can be found in the roots of the published package. Not sure if that works for considerably older versions too, though. On newer Captivate versions there's also the system variable 'CaptivateVersion', which you could just read out on run time in the browser's console.

[Lilybiri]

As Rod points out, only updates over two versions may be functional, but even in that case will need some editing and checking. Please check the version used for those old files.

Which version of CP2019 are you using?

[jons63257627]

Thanks @LilyBiri, I am using the most recent Trial version of 2019.

[jons63257627]

One other point: I have a licensed version of Cp 9 and the trial version of Cp 2019. Neither are working to open any cptx files, both crash immediately upon file open attempt.

[RodWard]

This may be a different issue entirely. Cp 2019 should be able to open Cp9 files. I have done that many times when upgrading older projects. Can you start a new project with either Captivate version? What are the settings you currently see in Preferences for Default Locations? Are the settings pointing to folders on your local hard drive?

[jons63257627]

Thanks for the help @RodWard. My Preferences in both versions are set to the local hard drive. Cp 2019 will not launch any projects, old or new. Just crashes. I have a service ticket in with Adobe and hope to report back here with a success story.

[RodWard]

Sounds like you need to reset your Preferences. If that doesn't fix the issue, try reinstalling Captivate. It's likely some other software you recently installed is now conflicting with Captivate and causing the issue.

[jons63257627]

Thanks @RodWard. Are you saying that the Default Locations in Preferences should point somewhere aside from my local drive?

[Lilybiri]

Those paths need to point to folders on your local system.

[jons63257627]

Thanks @Lilybiri. They already do by default, and it's a fresh install - haven't changed any preferences or installed anything since.