Captivate 2′s Critical Mass">Captivate 2′s Critical Mass
I’m on the Metra on my way home — yet another very late night of work.
Two posts back, I wrote about things crashing in Captivate 2 with larger simulations. While I’m sure this is not a solid rule, both a co-worker and I have now had four different simulations crash at 54 screens (I had three different simulations captured and worked on two different computers, my co-worker had one). 53 was just fine, and it honestly didn’t matter which slide I deleted — at 54 or more, the files all crashed Captivate 2.
Another weird thing for me, it didn’t even save iterative saves that I initiated after I opened the file. Three different files would crash and even though I did a Control-S with just about every change I did, when Captivate 2 would crash, I’d open up the file and none of the changes that happened prior to the crash were there.
Weird.
Good news, though, is that Captivate 3 seems to be immune to this weirdness, and it was installed AFTER I was starting to have these crashing issues in Captivate 2.
Anyone else ever deal with something like this?
We had all kinds of problems with large files in C2. C3 is much more stable, though it has a few issues of its own. I think the recommended # of slides for C2 was around 30-40. Hit 50 and you’re pushing your luck.
i’ve definitely had some major crashes in Captivate 2 due to large # of slides. it isn’t as bad in Captivate 3, but it still happens. i once did a very long screen capture (one with many menu clicks and screen changes), and as soon as i was done and went to ‘edit’ mode, CRASH. Captivate had created around 250 slides! yeeesh…
as far as critical mass / event horizon / point of no return, i’ve heard people whisper ’99′. personally i try and keep it all to 30 or less, then if i need more, string together multiple Captivate files in my Flash-based course interface.
I’m actually dealing with this problem right now, been scouring for a solution/recovery method. Were you ever able to recover those large files? On a long presentation, most of my chapters are in the 40 range and load smoothly, but one of them snuck up into the 90 range and while it saved and it says it loads almost the entire way, it crashes at that last moment before opening.
I’d really hate to recreate it… the timetable of the project and complexity of that section sort of make me sick thinking about redoing. Is it possible to get anything out of it? Need this hubris be paid for?
David,
I wish I had better news to report, but sadly no — once it crashed it was basically worthless. I’ve had a lot better luck with Captivate 3. It gets dog-slow with large files (especially when you add audio) so working off network drives is at your peril.
One thing about going to Captivate 3… save a new version of your project in Captivate 3, because you can’t open Captivate 3 work in Captivate 2 — and even Captivate 2 files need to be “upgraded.”
And Captivate 4 is due to roll out Q3 or Q4 of this year!
That’s too bad, but thanks for the info. Better to take to re-doing without the bitter doubts that it could have been easily saved another way. And thanks for the advice!