When I teach my vILT Storyline 360 classes, I tell my students to avoid editing the project file over a network drive. Because Storyline projects are a package of assets, those assets can get lost when the project is opened and edited over a network. To avoid the possibility of a corrupt project, always edit the .story files locally (on your local drive) and back up the project files to a network drive. (Or use the backup feature available when you publish to Articulate Review 360.)
I frequently hear from Storyline developers who either didn't know about the network issue, forgot, or IT requires developers to work off the network. Sooner or later, this message will appear when attempting to open the corrupt project:
If you receive the message above, the file is likely corrupt, and there is little you can do to fix it. However, all is not lost. It is possible that an earlier version of your project is on your local drive. Here's how you can save the day.
- Open your hard drive in Windows Explorer
- Open Users > your user name
- Select the View tab and, from the Show/hide group, enable Hidden Files
- Open the AppData folder
- Open the Roaming folder
- Open the Articulate folder
- Open the Storyline folder
- Scan the contents of Storyline folder for a tmp file that starts with the name of the corrupt project.
- Copy the newest version of the tmp file to your desktop
- Change the file extension of the copy on your desktop from .tmp to .story.
- Double-click the .story file to open it in Storyline.
Stay off that network, and all will be right with the world!
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