Make sure you have enough space on your hard drive (see image).
I keep a lot of files saved on my server or on an external hard drive so that I don't clog up my C drive.
Where are your Adobe Captivate program files?
“C:” drive, this include – default project location folder, cache folder, scratch drives for FMR and videos, Preferences, temp files for preview/publish. These are core elements and if the space is low, your system will run slow.
Make sure you have enough memory, see image below.
8 GB or 16 GB are good if you have really large projects or doing a video capture (or FMR) on a high resolution for a long time. To not miss these issues, most of the Adobe testers will have machine with 2GB RAM only.I have 8 GB of memory on my machine.
Clearing the Cache tidy's up your hard drive.
The cache speeds up opening your projects! Typically, Captivate projects have big sizes due to all the media they have. The cache is unzipped version of CPTX file. If the cache is not there, then it will unzip the CPTX file, which will take a long time. Also, in extreme cases, Cache gives you an opportunity to recover your projects.
But if you never clear the cache it can clog up your hard drive so here's how:
1.
Open up Captivate, but not a project
2. Select Edit (for MAC users select Adobe Captivate)
3.
Click Preference
4.
Click Clear Cache
Note: While clearing the Cache, make sure that the 'Publish at' and the 'Project Cache' directories are different. If they are not, all the projects (except for the one which is open) would also be deleted! (Thanks DHARMESH for pointing that out)
Note: While clearing the Cache, make sure that the 'Publish at' and the 'Project Cache' directories are different. If they are not, all the projects (except for the one which is open) would also be deleted! (Thanks DHARMESH for pointing that out)
Don’t work from a Server
I work from my hard
drive and save copies to the server (as backup).
Network drives can be slower and network connections are prone to error that might lead to project corruption.
Save Often!
You may notice funky things start to happen if you work in Captivate for more than a couple of hours, like images going red, or lines showing up or text boxes disappearing. It's not you. Captivate gets tired! Shut Captivate down every couple of hours to give it a rest, just for a few minutes, when you relaunch, you will notice all is well again!Shut Captivate down every few hours, the system gets tired and strange things can occur, such as: Pictures turning red, lines, text boxes disappearing. It’s not you!
Create a Back up
Open Global settings by opening Captivate, but not a specific project, click on Edit/Preferences/Global Preferences General Setting and click the Generate project back up button (see image)
Corruption
“A fatal error has occurred and the application is being terminated” and then it freezes/crashes and doesn't save. YICKS!
Why?In my experience it is due to corrupted preferences most of the times.
Make sure there is not a corrupt object or slide. Think about when the error message started happening. Did you insert a widget? Sometimes it can be as simple as deleting one object or one slide and recreating it.
If there is corruption going on, one way that has worked for me to fix it is by copying all the slides and opening a brand new project, paste the
slides in. Be aware that actions of buttons and click boxes or advanced actions (other than default) do not transfer.
Check out this blog entry to explain how a project can be recovered:
http://blogs.adobe.com/
Check out this blog entry to explain how a project can be recovered:
http://blogs.adobe.com/
Publishing: best practice
Make sure the Project Title matches the cptx file name. See image. It's okay to re-save a project as a different name; just make sure the names match when you go to publish!
Updates
Clean Preferences
When weird things start to happen that you can't fix, you can clean the preferences, be advised that any global preferences you saved will be lost, so you may want to save your preferences for particular projects first and then reimport them after you clean the preferences. Cleaning preferences is one of the last resorts.
To save Preferences with a project open go to File/Export/Preferences.
To Import Preferences with a project open go to File/Import/Preferences.
To Clean Preferences: Follow the steps below on Mac
1. Close Captivate
2. Go to Applications/Captivate 6/utils
3. Run CleanPreferencesMac
4. Start Captivate
To Clean Preferences: Follow the steps below on PC Windows machine:
1.
Close Captivate
2.
Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 6 x64\utils
3.
Run CleanPreferencesWin.bat
4.
Start Captivate
Last Resort
Uninstall and re-install the program!
Other sources for Help:
Email: if you have specific issues that you can not resolve on your own you can always email the Adobe help at: wish-captivate@macromedia.com
Other sources for Help:
LinkedIn: Adobe Captivate Groups
I never clear the cache totally, because for projects I'm still busy with I prefer to keep the cache since it can be converted in an earlier backup in case the real file/backup file corrupts. Warmly recommend the AIR application that you can use to select the caches that you want to clear. The description and download link can be found here: http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2010/09/new-utility-for-deleting-adobe-captivate-project-cache-folders.html
ReplyDeleteStrangely, never had issues with a project title different from the filename.
Thanks for your feedback and the link, I didn't know that the AIR application could select which caches to clear.
DeleteGreat collection of live-savers!
ReplyDeleteJust a small note: While clearing the Cache, people should make sure that the 'Publish at' and the 'Project Cache' directories are different. If they are not, all the projects (except for the one which is open) would also be deleted!
Thanks, and great point, I will add that to the information above. Thanks!
DeleteGreat article! As a long-time user of Captivate, I was surprised to discover that "Generate Project Backup" is not a default setting in Captivate6. I could have sworn that it had been a default setting in previous versions but I may be mistaken. Fortunately, I checked my preferences before anything occured that would warrant using the project backup but it's definitely something everyone should check as soon as possible, as it has saved my skin on more than one occasion in the past!
ReplyDeleteThanks Krista, much appreciate it. It is good to hear especially from that a long time user can get something out of it.
Delete