Storyline and Studio: Media Doesn't Autoplay When Slides Advance Automatically

Some web browsers, such as Google Chrome and Safari, no longer allow audio and video content to autoplay. Here's how this behavior affects your Storyline and Studio courses.

Media on the First Slide

Due to the new autoplay policies in some browsers, audio and video on the first slide of a course might not work. To fix this problem, we added a play button to Storyline and Studio courses that have audio or video introductions. By clicking the play button, learners give their browsers permission to play the media. (And as of July 2021, you can customize the play button screen by adding a course cover photo.) See these articles for details:

• Audio Doesn't Autoplay in Google Chrome
• Videos Don't Autoplay in Google Chrome
• Media Doesn't Autoplay in Safari

Media on Other Slides

Audio and video content on other slides in your course should play as expected as long as the user interacts with the content. However, if your slides are set to advance without any learner interaction—whether automatically or with time-based triggers such as starting a timeline or reaching a cue point—media might not work. Without learner interaction, browsers don’t have permission to play media content.

To ensure media plays correctly throughout your course, set the slide before audio or video content to advance only when learners click a button or otherwise interact with it. For example, if you have a video on slide 2, set slide 1 to advance when learners click the "next" button.

Similarly, when audio or video content is on a layer in Storyline, don't display the layer automatically. Ask learners to interact with another object on the slide before showing the layer. The media should play as expected.