Troubleshooting LMS Issues
If your organization is like most, you need to track and report on learner activity. And when you use Articulate software to author e-learning, publishing courses to a learning management system (LMS) is really easy.
But sometimes your course doesn’t behave as expected with your LMS. Why? More often than not it’s because each LMS implements tracking communication standards (AICC, SCORM, or Tin Can API) a little differently—and that can cause problems.
In this article, we’ll suggest some ways you can troubleshoot the most common of these issues:
- Published content won’t upload to your LMS.
- Course doesn’t play as expected in your LMS.
- Course doesn’t track or resume properly in your LMS.
Published content won’t upload to your LMS
If you get an error when you upload content to your LMS or it simply fails to upload, try following these steps:
1. Publish for LMS.
Make sure you’re publishing content correctly for LMS hosting. If you’re not sure, then review the publishing tutorial for your Articulate product:
2. Use a supported e-learning specification.
When you choose a publishing option in your Articulate software, be sure to select a communication standard that’s supported by your particular LMS.
We recommend choosing the newest spec that’s supported by your LMS. The supported specs, listed in order of age (from oldest to newest), are AICC, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, and Tin Can API.
3. Zip your published output.
Most LMSs need you to zip content before you upload it. The best way to zip your course is to click the Zip button on the Publish Successful dialog in your Articulate software. If you manually zip your published output instead, be sure to zip only the content files, not the containing folder.
4. Contact your LMS provider.
If you still can’t upload content to your LMS, contact your LMS provider for specific instructions.
Course doesn’t play as expected in your LMS
If your course doesn’t play the way you’d expect or if it doesn’t play at all, try following these steps:
1. Upload the published output to your LMS.
Check to see if you’re viewing the content from your LMS and not your local hard drive. Security restrictions from your computer, web browser, Flash Player, and network can cause issues with published output when viewed locally. Upload the published output to your LMS, and then view it.
2. Specify the launch file.
If your LMS needs you to manually specify the launch file for each course, make sure you’re pointing to the correct launch file.
- If you’ve selected AICC in the publishing dialog, your launch file is: index_lms.html
- If you’ve selected SCORM in the publishing dialog, your launch file is: index_lms.html
- If you’ve selected Tin Can API in the publishing dialog, your launch file is: story.html
3. Don’t launch the player in a new window.
If your LMS opens courses in a separate window, you’ll need to disable the Launch player in new window option in the player template for your course. Otherwise, your course content won’t be able to communicate with your LMS and won’t work as expected. To learn more, click your Articulate product below:
4. Update Adobe Flash Player.
Install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player for your web browser. This does not apply if you’re viewing content on an iPad.
5. Use a supported version of Java.
Ask your LMS provider if you need Java and, if so, which version of Java you should install. Articulate content doesn’t utilize Java. However, some LMSs require it. (Note: The most recent version of Java might not be supported by your LMS.)
6. Delete the browser cache.
Delete your browser cache, and then view the course again. If you’re not sure how to delete the cache, click a browser below to learn how:
7. Test your course at SCORM Cloud.
If none of these steps resolve your issue, test your published content at SCORM Cloud and compare the results with your LMS. SCORM Cloud is an industry-standard testing engine, and although “SCORM” is in its name, you can also use it to test AICC and Tin Can API content. (Click here for AICC testing instructions.)
If your content works properly at SCORM Cloud but not in your LMS, open a support case with your LMS provider to troubleshoot the issue. Your LMS provider may request a debug log to help identify the problem. Click here to learn how to generate a debug log.
If your course doesn’t play correctly at SCORM Cloud, submit a case to Articulate.
Course doesn’t track or resume properly in your LMS
If your course doesn’t track or resume properly in your LMS, first follow the recommendations in the preceding section. If it still doesn’t track or resume correctly, try the following steps:
1. Change the reporting status.
Ask your LMS provider if it requires specific values for the reporting status. Articulate provides four pairs of values that can be reported to an LMS. When publishing, click the Reporting and Tracking button and select the pair of values you want to use:
- Passed/Incomplete
- Passed/Failed
- Completed/Incomplete
- Completed/Failed
2. Select a tracking option.
When you’re publishing a course authored in either Articulate Storyline or Articulate Presenter, click the Reporting and Tracking button and specify whether you want to track course completion based on the number of slides viewed or by a particular quiz in the course.
3. Check the Resume setting.
Verify that the Resume setting is properly configured in your content. If it’s disabled, your course will always start over at the beginning. Learn more about resume options by clicking the Articulate product you use:
4. Close the web browser.
If you authored your course in Articulate Studio ’09, instruct learners to close the browser window (or browser tab) when they’ve finished the course. Their results and resume information will be communicated to the LMS when they close the browser.
5. Upload Tin Can API content to an external server.
If you published for Tin Can API, you may need to host the published output on a server that’s separate from your LMS. Click here to see where you should upload published files.
6. Determine if AICC content is in a cross-domain environment.
If you published for AICC and you’re hosting the published output on a server that’s separate from your LMS, you may be facing an AICC cross-domain limitation. You’ll need to add a file to your published output to resolve the issue. Click here for more information.
7. Test your course at SCORM Cloud.
If tracking or resuming issues persist, test your content at SCORM Cloud (see above). If it works properly at SCORM Cloud but not in your LMS, open a support case with your LMS provider to troubleshoot the issue. However, if it also fails to track or resume at SCORM Cloud, submit a case to Articulate.
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