64-Bit Storyline 360

I find it staggering that after this issue was raised over four years ago, a 64bit version of Storyline is still NOT on the roadmap, and yet new features, which are always welcome but will increase the demands on system resources are. 360 degree images? Very cool but almost certainly going to eat up RAM if done properly and if Storyline can't address above 2GB, this feature is going to be pointless.

I've gone back and forth with tech support, as have many others, and we are still no nearer to having a version of this software that is designed for the computers and operating systems of today (or even years ago). Colleagues in my team are reporting numerous issues with painfully slow performance and crashes, and the number of users reporting here is also concerning. Even when a user demonstrates clearly that a lack of ability to address the full system resource is causing an issue, we get told by Articulate that they can't replicate that issue and we should get in touch with a support rep with the general solution being to create a new project file and copy content into it.

I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to nanny an application that can't keep up with basic workflows. When the application stutters and wobbles at the simplest tasks, that then destroys any form of accuracy when moving, resizing or placing objects, it drives you to resort to dumbing down the experience you are looking to create for the end user, simply to ensure you can get projects finished on time for end users. It is stifling creativity rather than setting it free.

Speaking solely from my team's experience, we are increasingly disillusioned with the Storyline application to the point where we have begun investigating the painful solution of transitioning to other tools, simply because they perform as expected. This would involve huge costs and ramp up time, but we're not able to see any other alternative.

I've even reached out to Tom and Articulate's CTO, neither of whom have even had the decency to respond, even if it were to fob me off with another excuse.

I am sorry if the tone of my post here is overtly negative, but that mirrors my experience with Storyline over the last few years.

I implore your development team to reconsider the roadmap and deliver an ROI to us, the end users.

A >5 year thread, and really nothing from Articulate on solving this issue, that's sad and shows a huge lack of customer support. Sitting on laurels and expecting those who use it to put up with it will not last much longer. 

64 bit apps have been around for 15 years, long before Articulate even started working on the Storyline360 application. I find it rather odd and it shows a lack of vision that there is not a 64bit version out or even in the pipeline at this time (or a Macintosh version of this software.) It seems that actual development has stopped, and only little shiny buttons are being added to keep the masses using this, while breaking things that used to work. 

I am having to restart the app after it crashes several times a day at this point, and am using actions that are built into the program (no javascript or external coding). I do have a lot of variable/text entry fields that are used for assessment in real time, and other interactions on the same layers; this however should not be an issue. I have over 6GB of ram free during use of the app. And as stated above over 5 years ago, have to wait for several seconds when updating fields or images to continue working. I have submitted so many "what were you doing when the program crashed" messages, it's nauseating. 

instead of adding in more bells and whistles for the upcoming major release, maybe focus on a stable 64bit, non-memory capped application that takes full use of the CPU caching and can access the GPU for rendering as well. For the money this costs, and the huge user base you have, it should be expected. 

Thanks for replying on this dramatic request.

I can only imagine, it is dramatic not only on my end.. And hope you all can imagine, that we do not make stuff in SL only for fun. Our businesses depend on proper and reliable tools. We simply cannot make our organizations, customers and their customers more efficient and happy if our tools fail. I have a SL project that runs all over the world and will replace another that has been presented do +4000 industry experts on +500 training sessions. Now, .story line of 3GB cannot digest any simple thing added more and crashes...

One of the strange things is cashing non-used, duplicated media inside the file, which for sure is not without influence on the overall reliability.. nobody on earth can guess what is what in the files structure with the very convenient name system and moving out some of the duplicates makes the file unplayable.

I know EXACTLY that same feeling of being scared of losing work due to these weird errors. It's genuinely frightening because the impact on deadlines can be heartstopping. Time wasted, edits to be reapplied, possible file corruption - it's genuinely concerning how often these little heart attack moments occur with this programme. 

From the screen going white with a giant red X through it; the thumbnails being completely blank occasionally; the weird glitch when a master slide is deleted but it doesn't update on the screen; the innumerable copies of files that sudden;y appear in the folder due to some hiccup with autosave that eventually yields to Eric's issue above; to the "We are sorry" modal that pops up whenever the format tool is used - all contribute to a never decreasing nervousness that this app is unstable and could crash at any minute.

And never, ever, update until a few weeks later in case something new gets broken.

Come on, folks. Let's halt with the 'features' and just build this baby to be super solid, utterly reliable and a joy to use. Because this ain't it. 

It's a heart-attack and a very pissed-off client away from being the death of me, sometimes.

Looking at CTO update they are investigating 64 bit app, but have a focus on reducing bugs and crashes at the momemnet https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/storyline-under-a-microscope-an-update-from-the-cto

The issues seem to start showing up once there are several slide layers being used on multiple slides in the same scene. My workaround was to create a new scene to place content on a blank slide in order to work without a delay, then copy everything I had done in that slide to the slides that slowed down previously. This was the only way to finish the project. I've run into this issue with multiple projects now. I don't think Storyline handles several slide layers very well. Hope this workaround helps save someone some time.

I'm 99% sure this is not my system, as I'm working on an Intel i7 with 32 GB ram and gtx 960m on a 1TB SSD.

Thanks for responding Alyssa. Yeah, my system has been well able to handle Storyline till now. I have followed the "repairing" instructions and indeed, Storyline is opening with a regular ol' Articulate Storyline 360 icon in the dock.

Things seem to behaving a little better except there are a few glitches that seem to have crept in with these recent updates:

• Clicking the "Replay" button within a slide preview fails to replay the slide most of the time. I have to click "Close" then "Preview" again in order to review the slide.
• Looped animations (movies) in the background on the base layer now fail to loop when published. They behave perfectly in preview, but seem to fail when published.

There are a number of other clunky things that I cannot remember right now but I'm beginning to realise that updating immediately is probably not a good idea, if things get broken as a result.

And my initial point remains that something in the last update caused Storyline to open an app called "Articulate Storyline 360 x32" in my Dock. Weird. 

And not reassuring.

Its just so ridiculous! I'm fortunate enough to have a pretty experienced brother when it comes to tech support and he spent a good few hours trying to tackle the issue.

We can comfortably say that we have found that the issue 100% lies within Storyline and managed to replicate the crash error over and over again by forcing the capped memory of 2GB to go over 2000 (hopefully that makes sense as i'm not so technically gifted!) and then as soon as it peaked above 2000 low and behold the errors came up.

Im currently trying to backdate another work PC down to Windows 10 - 32 bit to see if I can replicate the issue there as well and then I'll know for sure if the error lies withing the 64GB OS.

How on earth more people aren't experiencing this I just don't know?! 

Any word on the 64-bit version of Storyline 3?  This running out of memory issue is getting worse and worse by the day.

Has a 64-bit program made it onto the "road map" yet?