Captivate 9 Bizarre Timeline Behavior - Multiple Items on Same Row

[Qurve Learning LLC]

I am migrating a Captivate 7 program into Captivate 9.

I opened Captivate 9

I opened the Captivate 7 version

Everything worked beautifully.

Suddenly the timeline is behaving badly.

Now when I try to change the stacking order, multiple objects are appearing on the same row. Some rows are empty.

Has anyone seen this? I've included a screen shot.

Items 1, 2, 3 multiple items on the same row

Item 4, rows are empty.

Can anyone provide advice?

[Lilybiri]

Timeline going crazy, happens sometimes.

Did you try:

• to navigate to another slide and come back to this slide (mostly helps)
• to reset the workspace - if first solution doesn't help?
• to restart Captivate if second solution gives no result?
• to clear the cache?
• to restart your system?

[AP_AW]

This has started happening to the first slide in my project as well. Trying one of the solutions you've provided make the timeline look ok but when you try to change a layer things go awry.

[Lilybiri]

Time to restart the system, and I would be careful because this could be the start of a corrupted project.

[AP_AW]

By "being careful" do you mean to start a new project and to copy the content across?

Oddly enough I think it's related to having some variables named the same as elements in the project. When I renamed the elements the issue seems to have resolved itself (hopefully).

[Lilybiri]

Not having a strict discipline in labeling can certainly be the cause of your issues. With the exception of slide names, you should never use the same name for two items, objects, variables, advanced actions, shared actions and decisions in conditional actions. It is one of my warnings almost everywhere. I will start each variable name with v_; image with I_, shape button with SB, etc. I don't think this is linked with Captivate limitations. Names are case sensitive, you can easily have similar names if you want by capitalizing a character or inserting an underscore.

There is one exception (which I normally not tell newbies, it is better to avoid duplicate names): if you first name an interactive object, then create an advanced action for that object you can use the same name. If you do the reverse, you'll have issues.

[Qurve Learning LLC · Accepted solution]

Thanks Lieve. I tried everything except resetting the workspace (didn't think of that!). Finally decided the project was corrupt (it wasn't happening in any other projects).

I ended up creating a new project and copying slides to the new project. It worked fine after that.

Grr..... an hour lost