August 17, 2010

Connection Error in Slide Video

There has been some threads in user forum about the connection error which learners get in Slide Video. I got a chance to closely analyze many of these specific issues and in all the cases it turned out to be server configuration problems.

Some background Info: When you insert video into Captivate as Slide Video, it by default is configured to be progressive download. All you need to do is publish the project and upload the entire publish folder to the server – Some cases just a web server (IIS, Apache etc) and other cases to an LMS. In both these cases, slide video is supposed to work well – you should not be seeing a “connection error” message.

You don’t need to do any more specific changes in your captivate project to get Slide Video working. However some users were continually getting this “connection error”. All these has been due to server (web server or LMS) configuration issues. These things help you correct this:

  1. Make sure your server allows hosting and downloading FLV / F4V files. Here we see some specific setting required for Win 2003 server (though this has nothing to do with Captivate).
  2. You can verify whether your server setting is OK by using any FLV player like this. The URL will be http://<your_server>/<your_publish_folder>/<yourflv>.flv. This way you can test whether the server can serve FLV files at least outside captivate SWF.
  3. You can freely check whether your SCORM package is correctly working with video on scorm.com (here). If this works then it is time you talk to your LMS vendor.
  4. Lastly you need to talk to your LMS / Server vendor regarding video hosting. I have specifically seen situations where the LMS vendor has to change configuration to allow video.
Posted by Sony Kadavan11:01 AM
  • Fix

    Hello,

    I had the message “connection error” using my LMS. The flv was ok, I could read it easely.

    I discover that an “é” (french accent letter) in the video flv file name was causing the trouble.

    So my advice is to name video and other object with simple file name without special letter in the file name.

  • Randy39392000

    I feel like just using Adobe Flash to create my Video content. Sorry this is ridiculous as this was supposed ot be one of the main advantages of using Captivate 5.5.

    • http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate Shameer Ayyappan

      There is no issue with inserting Slide video in #AdobeCaptivate. This blog post was to help customers who were having difficulty in inserting slide video- they received ‘Connection errors’ due to server configuration problems and incorrect URLs. The 4 steps mentioned in the post help you test your server settings and host the slide video.
      But there is a URL formatting bug in the ‘insert FLV object’ workflow. This other blog post provides a workaround for the same: http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2011/03/workaround-for-video-streaming-issues-in-captivate.html

  • Don Townsend

    Any thoughts on a connection error with slide video that happens only in firefox. I can view everything in IE and Chrome… and I can view the non-video elements in Firefox… but the video always gives the connection error in Firefox. All browsers mentioned are latest versions and Flash has been updated.

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