Loss of data

[Chai_Lai]

I just had Captivate crash after doing a whole series of screen shots with voice overlay. This actually has happened too many times. It's quite frustrating. I choose end, and Captivate appears to be open, but you can't get it open from the Start bar even though the name is there. A Control-Alt-Delete says it is running, so I close it, hoping for a choice to save. Only sometimes will it save under those conditions. This time the message didn't even come up.

Most of the time, when I go back in, it says there's another instance of my file open. This time it did not. I was able to open the file. I thought I had saved, but it appears that I have lost alot of slides. I have set the auto-save option to every 5 minutes. Does this option even work? I can't see how I can retrieve an auto-save file? Can anyone help?

[Captiv8r]

HI Chai Lai and welcome to our community

First off, where are you saving? Your local PC or on a network drive? If you are saving to a network drive, you should know this is the source of many user frustrations. Captivate doesn't work and play well with a network.

How many slides? 50 or 60 or is it over 100? You should know Captivate doesn't work well with large movies. Especially if you aren't following the advice in the first paragraph.

Auto save. This option DOES NOT WORK. So never ever rely on it. Hopefully the next version of Captivate will be better with auto saving. There is no way to retrieve any auto save file. There is no auto save file.

Cheers... Rick

[Chai_Lai]

Thanks, Rick. I am glad to hear that my intuitive gut feeling was that it didn't work. I have been using Captivate to develop a training course for our educational software program which is very robust. It uses a sql database. The length of the course, which is being edited for DVD, will probabaly be about 8 hours.

Is Captivate designed for such a large project where the software the software uses a sql database and is slow to open when accessing the database? I have found that it locks up and crashes quite often.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Chai

Hopefully you aren't planning on a single Captivate project that would span 8 hours! If so, I'll tell you right up front that you better go check into something like a Cray supercomputer with 300 Terrabytes of high speed RAM and ooodles of disk space.

Cheers... Rick

[Chai_Lai]

It's broken into 4 parts with a total of 42 files. The entire size of the project is 3.75 gig. Perhaps I'm exaggerating the length, because it takes so long to open up each file, preview and look at it. I will have to try to do that.

Do you have an idea of the normal size project someone would use Captivate for?

[Chai_Lai]

Just to add to my previous post.... It's broken into 4 parts, having a total of 42 files and an overall size of 3.75 gig.
I thought based upon advice that the product was easy to use, that I could complete it in 10 days or 80 hours, but it has turned out to be 450 hours.

Do you have a general idea of the size of project Captivate is most often used for?

[Chai_Lai]

Just to add to my previous post.... It's broken into 4 parts, having a total of 42 files and an overall size of 3.75 gig.
I thought based upon advice that the product was easy to use, that I could complete it in 10 days or 80 hours, but it has turned out to be 450 hours.

Do you have a general idea of the size of project Captivate is most often used for?