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Anyone else get Frustrated from Adobe Captivate?
Hello Fellow eLearners!
I have worked in graphic design, multimedia, eLearning, animation, video, and the web over 20 years, working with a boatload of the Adobe applications. I am also an Adobe Certified Instructor and I teach most of the applications.
And I have never had a problem JUST Opening an application.
but TODAY (9am) I tried to open Adobe Captivate to open a client project to update my portfolio ….
before breakfast….
I Open CAPTIVATE…. 3 seconds later it closes. Tried it again. Same thing. I did a few google searches… it’s a common problem. I’m not alone. I tried removing preferences and after nothing worked… I tried Adobe Chat help (9:30am). We chat for 15 minutes, then support sends me a link to download an application so I can share my screen, but first I have to close all of my other open Adobe applications ( I close Photoshop, Premiere, & Dreamweaver and all my open project files (sounds fun so far, huh?).
After the download & decompress the file, then install it, then have to work out some security permissions, and still we have issues. I suggest a phone call…. (10:15am). We chat for over 30 minutes … deleting a bunch of files, and opening the library folder about 10 times…. changed read and write permissions, deleted OOBE folders, and then I tried to reopen Captivate (11am) —it opened… and then CLOSED right away. Fun day so far!
Then support suggests uninstalling Captivate and re-installing. I uninstall the app I had to download for chat…. uninstall Captivate… then he sends a link to download Captivate…. which now after 15 minutes waiting it says “Opening in 1 hour) (time now 11:18am) then I have to write to him after its downloaded….
but first… I guess I should have breakfast (its almost 11:30am) I’m self-employed and just wasted my day just trying to open up Adobe Captivate. Mission: NOT ACCOMPLISHED
Am I alone here?
Hello Fellow eLearners!
I have worked in graphic design, multimedia, eLearning, animation, video, and the web over 20 years, working with a boatload of the Adobe applications. I am also an Adobe Certified Instructor and I teach most of the applications.
And I have never had a problem JUST Opening an application.
but TODAY (9am) I tried to open Adobe Captivate to open a client project to update my portfolio ….
before breakfast….
I Open CAPTIVATE…. 3 seconds later it closes. Tried it again. Same thing. I did a few google searches… it’s a common problem. I’m not alone. I tried removing preferences and after nothing worked… I tried Adobe Chat help (9:30am). We chat for 15 minutes, then support sends me a link to download an application so I can share my screen, but first I have to close all of my other open Adobe applications ( I close Photoshop, Premiere, & Dreamweaver and all my open project files (sounds fun so far, huh?).
After the download & decompress the file, then install it, then have to work out some security permissions, and still we have issues. I suggest a phone call…. (10:15am). We chat for over 30 minutes … deleting a bunch of files, and opening the library folder about 10 times…. changed read and write permissions, deleted OOBE folders, and then I tried to reopen Captivate (11am) —it opened… and then CLOSED right away. Fun day so far!
Then support suggests uninstalling Captivate and re-installing. I uninstall the app I had to download for chat…. uninstall Captivate… then he sends a link to download Captivate…. which now after 15 minutes waiting it says “Opening in 1 hour) (time now 11:18am) then I have to write to him after its downloaded….
but first… I guess I should have breakfast (its almost 11:30am) I’m self-employed and just wasted my day just trying to open up Adobe Captivate. Mission: NOT ACCOMPLISHED
Am I alone here?
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The first go-to when encountering issues (like the ones mentioned in this thread) is to close Captivate, and then re-start it as Administrator. To do that in Windows, go to:
- START MENU – find Adobe Captivate
- Select Adobe Captivate, but don’t double click yet. Instead, click on your right mouse button, select MORE, and then select “Run as Administrator”
Running as administrator usually clears a lot of problems.
Not everyone in a company gets the rights to do so. Some features (like capturing) need it, most not.
Moreover it is much easier to set up ‘Run as Administrator’ in a permanent way (Advanced).
Adobe captivate newbie (but reasonably tech savvy) here. I find the Captivate buggy, arcane, awkward, confusing, and extremely inconvenient to use. I insert a video; I cannot get the resolution of the original video. Everything is grainy. I preview the slide, it’s blank. I google. I change the default browser. It’s blank.
I’ll be savaged by the Captivate Defense Force, but I don’t care, I’ll say it again anyway: Captivate is a buggy, archaic mess that needs a bottom-to-top rewrite and redesign. Mac or Windows, it doesn’t matter (I use it on both) – it takes forever to open, forever to save files, in-app actions are sluggish, the UI is inefficient at best, highly-touted features like PowerPoint importing are utterly worthless, and in lieu of demanding that significant, long-standing shortcomings be fixed, the community will instead roast you, dear user, for not knowing enough about Captivate to employ the arcane workarounds and insider secrets necessary to actually make the software function correctly. All the while Adobe focuses its resources on new features that only a fraction of users even care about (hello VR). Every time a new update is released, you’ll eagerly download and install it with the hopes of seeing significant improvements to performance and stability. And you will be disappointed.
I keep praying a good Mac software developer will enter the eLearning authoring arena, but those prayers continue to go unanswered.
Did you ask Articulate? Why did they give up trying to develop a Mac version of their flagship? Have some ideas but you could put some pressure on them?
Totally agree about the UI which I personally dislike since it appears with CP8. I never use PPT to start an eLearning course, and have always told everyone everywhere that it is not at all a good feature in Captivate. But I never use a screwdriver to drill a hole, prefer a Makita tool…. that is what using PPT is to me (screwdriver) when you have a real eLearning authoring tool (whatever it is, Lectora, StoryLine or Captivate).
Please come back when you find the tool that will be to your liking to promote it here.
Thanks for sharing your input… I must say you are spot on! I always tell them, stop adding NEW features and fix the basic features that do NOT always seem to work, like a basic Command + S to save, or Command + or – to zoom in and out…. glad to hear I am not alone. Just find it weird that more clients are not complaining about it. I like Captivate, but I can’t think of ONE project that I have created where I didn’t run into issues/problems/hiccups. Its definitely clunky. Thanks for sharing!
I’m on a Mac and had the whole issue with uninstall/reinstall earlier this year with one of the updates. It’s been incredibly frustrating.
You are not alone! I am having a TON of issues with Update 4. I’ve been working with adobe since December 2nd. The same useless song and dance that you explained – is my experience. I am so frustrated! Nothing works. Yes, I am a Mac Catalina User and recently certified Captivate Specialist. Self employed as well.
They claim that these issues are not happening in their labs. Called Apple and they have remote into my machine twice. They can’t find anything wrong with the BRAND NEW – $3000.00 machine that I recently purchased to specifically run ADOBE resource intensive applications on.
None of the following works:
- New from MS Project at startup screen
- New from MS Project or Template within the app
- Unable to Browse for local files
- Unable to insert Media: SVG, Image or Audio
I’ve had countless calls and remote screen shares with them. I am not confident that they know how to resolve the issues – it’s been a month now and I’m now losing work.
Here’s the consistent crash error I receive
Attachment 
Urgh, sounds frustrating. I feel its a good application, just needs a bit more support for Macs. Try calling the Adobe support…. it won’t be easy, but they will work with you as long as it takes to resolve the problem. Thanks for your shared input!
Cheers,
mark
Have you done the update they came out with a few weeks ago? I’ve not needed to since my computer is old enough it can’t run Big Sur, but I feel like Adobe sent out an email that it was supposed to fix the known issues.
That update Microsoft did last week was hair raising in the number of issues it caused, but so far, I think Captivate it working as expected…
Mark Itskowitch I have HIGH hopes that we’ll be seeing Captivate 2021/22 soon and it will resolve some of these issues. Since we’re locked to Captivate as Mac users who don’t feel the desire to run Windows, I’d hope they’d build Mac first…
Yes we shall hope! Some of the users above are right though. They do seem to keep adding new features, when I would prefer if they perfected some of the old features, or removed the things that are no longer being used, like skins, and some of the really powerpoint-ish preset animations.
And they need to create a way to import video with alpha channels, so we can import Character Animator to aid with eLearning. Or better yet, create a dynamic link from Character Animator to Captivate and take advantage of being Adobe! And Creative Cloud libraries should be included in Captivate – being a multimedia application that incorporates text, graphics, images, animation, video, audio – Captivate needs those shared Libraries the most!! Fingers crossed!
You forgot to tell that you are on a Mac. As a Win user cannot help you. My experience with Captivate is totally different, and I am using and teaching a lot of Adobe applications as well.
Yes I am on a MAC….. and the software should run just as well as it does on the PC.
