Automatic Recording on Captivate 5.5 for Mac does not seem to work

[mkaplanes]

I've used the automatic recording feature on Captivate for Windows v 4.0 and it seemed to work just fine. It captured all my clicks and typing just fine.

But now I'm on the MacBook and I'm using Captivate 5.5 for Mac. I'm using the Automatic recording feature and it seems to miss most of what I'm doing. I tried doing some simple movements such as opening a Word file, typing in some text, bolding text, saving the document, and closing the documents. The automatic mode missed about 50% of what I was doing.

Initially, I thought it might be because I have a MacBook and I've got an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But then I tried the exact same recording using just my MacBook with no external inputs or outputs and I got the same sporadic results.

I've also tried other options: recording a screen area, recording an application, recording entire screen, etc.

In general, it seems to get the first couple of things I do and then just seems to stop recording anything.

Has anybody else had this problem?

Any suggestions for any settings I can try to help with this problem?

thanks in advance for your help,

marc

[flockofseagulls]

I have exactly the same issue, I've used Captivate on Windows with sucessfull auto recording - but on Apple iMac (OS X Lion) none of the automatic recording modes work reliably - sometimes nothing is recorded at all, other time it will work for a few frames and then stop - sometime taking a manual frame will make it record the next mouse cick but then it give up again! I've never found Captivate a particularly reliable product - only use it because there does not seem to be a viable alternative - but on Mac it would seem to be completely useless.

Surely there must be a solution (other than switching to Camtasia).

[muppet-labs]

+1

I also have the same issue - the behavior is all over the map. Sometimes it does a reasonable job of taking a snapshot when you click or type, other times it's lucky to record the first and last screen shot.

Would be nice if Adobe could chime in here and work these bug reports to a resolution.

[flockofseagulls]

I believe I may have found a solution - do either of you have the Zoom feature in Universal Access switched on? If so, turn it off and reboot your Mac - then recording works fine - at least it worked for me.

[muppet-labs]

Not a bad idea, thanks for thinking to pass it on.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the Zoom feature activated so your solution may not work for me, perhaps others though.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have enabled access for assistive devices since the Adobe Connect environment requires this setting in order to be able to share screens etc ...

I just didn't turn on any of the individual features - perhaps I need to disable UA during captures......

I'm currently following general troubleshooting steps and have uninstalled captivate and am now reinstalling (and patching).

Thursday and Friday will be big work days as I have a lot of captures to do - will know by then if it works passably well or if I have to switch over to a PC to finish the project.

As a last resort, FMR seems to work for me but the need to cut and trim the recording in order to get some control over appearance and pacing throws my project time estimates out the door.

[muppet-labs]

Uninstalling and reinstalling seems to have helped so far - automatic recording is doing a great job of snapshotting whenever I manipulate the interface (check boxes, drop down lists, scrolling, typing etc ...). Triggering manual snapshot with a key combinations is working as expected and ending the capture now works consistently.

As I have a fair bit of capturing to do, I'll update if behavior degrades over the next week.

[muppet-labs]

Day 1 went pretty well but on day 2 the capture behavior degraded; it no longer automatically captures on drop downs, scrolling or check boxes. Uninstalled and reinstalled and got back automatic captures on check boxes and some scrolling events but not on drop downs. So abandoning Captivate 5.5 for Mac and going to the PC version. Working on the weekend to make up for lost time - thanks Adobe!

[RodWard]

Interesting that you didn't say: "Thanks Apple Lion!"  but you chose to blame Adobe.

As far as I know Adobe has never claimed Captivate was compatible with LION. What IS it with you Apple dudes that the Apple OS can NEVER be the problem if Captivate doesn't work properly on it?

[muppet-labs]

At what point did I say I was using Lion? I'm on Snow Leopard (10.6), you know, the version that is compatible with Captivate....

I suggest that you take your flame wars somewhere else - my posts were about what does or does not work in a legitimate, production environment.

In any event, I'm not an Apple dude, I'm a getting work done dude - I've already moved on to the PC version of Captivate for this project.

Suggestion for you next post: get facts first and add something that contributes to the discussion at hand.

[RodWard]

My apologies.  If you're on a supported OS and having issues, you may pursue Adobe for solutions with my blessing.