How to Troubleshoot Storyline 360 Crashing when Reviewing & Publishing

Articulate Storyline 360 is an incredibly powerful tool for creating interactive and engaging e-learning content. However, there’s nothing more frustrating than encountering crashes while trying to review or publish your masterpiece. If you’ve ever faced this issue, you’re not alone! In this post, I’ve curated some common approaches to addressing it.

Why does my software crash?

Software applications can crash for various reasons. What causes it can vary depending on factors such as the type of application, the operating system, and the underlying hardware. Here’s a list of common reasons for application crashes, ordered from most common to least common:

• Memory-related issues
• Software bugs
• External dependencies: When applications rely on external libraries, APIs, or services, issues in those dependencies can lead to crashes.
• Hardware-related problems
• Resource exhaustion: Applications can crash if they consume too much memory, CPU, disk space, or other system resources.
• Operating system issues: Driver conflicts, kernel bugs, or insufficient permissions, can trigger application crashes.
• Network errors: Applications that depend on network connectivity may crash due to communication failures or timeouts.
• Security-related issues
• Filesystem errors: Corruption or inaccessibility of required files can lead to application crashes
• Software conflicts: Interactions between multiple software applications, especially in complex environments, can lead to crashes.

8 Things to Try

The following list represents my curation from the eLearning Heroes forums on things you can try if Storyline 360 crashes when you try to publish or preview your project. I’ve listed them in the order that are the quickest to try.

1. Make sure you are working on files locally
2. Empty the temporary Storyline folder
3. Try publishing selected scenes or slides
4. Import the problem course into a new Storyline 360 project file
5. Update to the latest build of Storyline 360
6. Remove problem fonts like Noto Sans and MS Mincho
7. Repair Storyline 360
8. Reach out to Support

Step 1: Work on Storyline 360 files locally

Always save and publish your Articulate Storyline files to your local drive. Avoid working on network drives or external (USB) drives to prevent erratic behavior caused by latency. So, if your project files are not on your local drive, move them and see if that addresses the problem.

Step 2: Empty the Storyline 360 Temp folder

Each time you save a Storyline 360 project, a temp file is created. For Windows users, this is located in the C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Articulate\Storyline folder. Overtime, this can fill up with a large amount of temp files. Many users have reported deleting the .tmp files has fixed the publishing/reviewing crash issue.

Update: Although I see posts going back to 1 year ago (5/31/2022) stating this was still happening, it appears that Articulate has addressed this on some specific build in the last year. Which build? I’m not sure but let me know if you see lots of temp files in the Storyline folder directory.

Step 3: Try publishing selected scenes or slides

In the past, I’ve run into corrupted slides that kept me from publishing a course. To find the corrupted slide, here are a few things that worked for me:

1. If you have multiple scenes in your project, try publishing one scene at a time. If the scene doesn’t work, your culprit is a slide in that scene.
2. If you don’t have multiple scenes, try publishing a subset of the slides within that scene. If that works, add a few more slides and republish again. Eventually, the culprit slide will be included and publishing will error out. That’s the slide you need to delete and rebuild!

Step 4: Import the problem course into a new Storyline 360 project folder

This is another possible solution to try. For the steps required, review this article.

Step 5: Update to the latest Storyline 360 build

The Articulate development team is actively maintaining and improving the product. Here is their process for addressing bugs if you’re interested. As I discussed in my earlier post, Staying in the Know: My Go-To Resources for Articulate, it’s important to review the current builds if you are having a challenge with Storyline. The solution may be as simple as updating your software!

Step 6: Remove problem fonts

I have seen users report that fonts such as Noto Sans font (Google) and MS Mincho create problems with publishing and reviewing. This should no longer be an issue as it was fixed in the July 27, 2021 release (Build 3.54.25674.0). That being said, you never know when a font might create problems. So, I’m leaving this here just in case. Here’s an article that will walk you through replacing fonts should you encounter the problem.

Step 7: Repair Storyline 360

If none of the troubleshooting tips above work, it’s time to run a repair on Storyline 360. This article will guide you through the process.

Step 8: Reach out to Articulate Support

Finally, if doing a repair does not solve your problem, reach out to the Articulate Support team or post your questions on the eLearning Heroes forum. It will help those of us who troubleshoot if we know what you have already tried so make sure you include it in your post. To ensure you get a response, make sure you follow my tip in the Staying in the Know: My Go-To Resources for Articulate post.

Conclusion

I constantly monitor forums for working solutions and will update this post accordingly if I learn of another solution. If you have additional insights to contribute, please leave a comment below. Let’s collaborate to make this resource even more valuable!