Cannot run Captivate courses from my local drive

[Jon_So_Az]

I cannot run Captivate courses from my local drive when I used to be able to.  I am on CP7, but this started with CP6.  I spent an hour on the phone with our help desk people who seem to feel that this is a problem with HR permissions.

The odd thing is that I can run Articulate courses from my local drive.  It is just the Captivate courses that won't run. Another odd problem is that the same course runs if I launch it from our Learning Management System, but doesn't run if I try to launch it from the admin side of the LMS. 

Captivate courses

Run from local machine?  No

Run from admin side of LMS? No

Run from learner side of LMS? Yes

Articulate courses

Run from local machine?  Yes

Run from admin side of LMS? Yes

Run from learner side of LMS? Yes

I am at a loss to explain why I cannot run CP courses from my local machine and so far I am running into walls whenever I contact our IT or HR people.  Any suggestions?

Publishing in AICC format because our LMS doesn't like SCORM. 

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Sorry to sound totally dense here, but please define: Cannot run.

How exactly are you trying to run it? (Double-clicking an icon, clicking a link from another page, etc.)

What exactly happens? (Things SEEM okay at first, then an error message appears, etc.)

Cheers... Rick

[Jon_So_Az]

At the end of the publishing process, Captivate displays a dialogue box that says:

Publish Completed successfully.  Do you wish to view the output?

I click the Yes button and am taken to IE.  The tab says Captivate E-Learning Course.  The URL path points to the htm file in the published location.  The screen is completely blank.  No error messages at all.

Windows 7 with IE8

[Captiv8r]

So when you look at the folder location where you published, what do you see?

Perhaps share a screen capture of that location with us? (if you do, please use the web browser interface to the forums and use the little Camera Icon to upload the image.

Cheers... Rick

[Jon_So_Az]

[Captiv8r]

Thanks for the image.

Does it run if you double-click the file named 200898_PBM_New_Hire_Assessment.htm?

Cheers... Rick

[Jon_So_Az]

Unfortunately, no.    Same thing with the index.html file which is the launch file for the LMS.  It is just a very odd problem. 

[Captiv8r]

Well carp!

What if you open (or try opening) the same file name but the SWF file extension?

My thought here is that if the SWF doesn't run, perhaps there is an issue you generically need to address with the project.

Does preview work?

Cheers... Rick

[Jon_So_Az]

Previewing the project in CP works just fine.  However, double-clicking the same file with the swf extension results in this, but the course never fully loads.

[Captiv8r]

In that case I think I'd try publishing again. But during the process, ensure you enable the option to Force Republish.

If that doesn't help, hopefully someone else has a different idea to try.

Cheers... Rick

[Jon_So_Az]

I appreciate all of your assistance Rick.  Unfortunately that does not help either.   

I am hoping that someone can come along with some different ideas.  It is rather bizarre.

[Mr5strings]

Jon,

Could it possibly be the Flash plugin on your local system? Try updating it...a lot of attempts to troubleshoot your issue but it seems no one has mentioned the Flash Player plugin...your plugin may be currupt or out of date...at least its a simple thing to check out before delving in any deeper...

[RodWard]

Turn off LMS reporting and republish then test. 

If this then allows your project to run, your issue is that the Captivate published output is sitting there waiting for an LMS to show up and talk to it.

[Jon_So_Az]

@ RodWard,

While that worked, it doesn't help me to explain why I cannot launch an AICC published Captivate course from the Admin side of our LMS, but can from the learner side.  It also doesn't explain why I can launch an AICC published Articulate course from my desktop, from the admin side of our LMS and and from the learner side. It also doesn't explain why my co-workers are having no problems launching AICC published Captivate courses from their desktops.

BUT.... It certainly helps and for that I appreciate the suggestion.

I am starting to think that there is something about the way that Captivate handles the publishing of AICC that is the real problem.  Unfortunately, we have absolutely no choice in that matter, because while our LMS does have an option for SCORM published courses, they do not work at all in this particular LMS, as bizarre as that sounds.

I think I will do side by sides of published files (Captivate versus Articulate) to see if I can pinpoint why this is happening.

[RodWard]

Check with your LMS vendor.  I have encountered some LMSs that didn't allow the administrator to launch a course.  I had to log in as a normal user enrolled in the course in order to test it.

Don't expect Captivate and Articulate to work exactly the same way.  They won't, even though they're both reputedly using SCORM drivers from Rustici.