I have encountered a technical issue using Flash (CC) content in Captivate 7. I am distributing the content to a customer with approximately 1000 Windows PC's running IE 9 +. Some of these computers have no issue but a small number experience a problem which prevents them from downloading content after an undetermined point. There is no apparent pattern to identify either a fault in the content or a fault in the workstation build.
The problem looks like this:
- The user is able to access the content - sometimes several courses, sometimes only one.
- At some point during a course -it will stop playing (failing to load the next page).
- The user can close the course and reload - but is always stops in the same place it originally failed.
- The user can load previously accessed courses and these work without issue.
- The user is unable to load any new courses (previously un-accessed) - resulting in a blank page.
No application events are logged when this occurs so there is little to examine when it occurs. We have anecdotal evidence that the issue can sometimes be resolved by clearing the browser cache - but not always. Also - we have unconfirmed reports that the problem can "resolve itself" after several weeks.
From my perspective it looks like one of the following scenarios is causing the problem:
- The Flash Player is caching content in a location other than the browser cache and reaches a limit. The cache is not overwriting content so then fails to download any new content.
- The Flash Player experiences a problem which prevents it from downloading content (corrupt files, registry issue, or policy restriction).
We have several other customers who access this content at different sites - and none have reported this specific issue, so we are confident that the delivery mechanism is sound. The customers workstations are generally new machines with plenty of capacity, and they have a 200 Mb leased line connection to the Internet. The customer has assured us they do not use a caching proxy server on site, nor any bandwidth optimisation tools so in theory, the client connection is direct to the Internet. Additionally - the fact that this issue affects isolated workstations suggests the problem lies at the endpoint - not in the transmission path.
Has anyone encountered this type of issue before - or does anyone have any knowledge of Flash Player caching operations?
Regards