Run Mode: White Screen

andrew-robertson

Any idea why this occurs? I can do the preview through the web browser without a problem, but any testing in the app seems to break.

This is a fairly large project with 1 AU, 5 Chapters, and 1 Test section.

andrew-robertson

Update: After speaking with my IT Department, they have whitelisted the trivserver.exe file in our McAfee Endpoint software. After uninstalling and reinstalling the application, everything is working fine.

Thank you to all who were helping me investigate the problem.

cainam

Is this the only module this happens with, or any module?

andrew-robertson

Hi @cainam - I can safely say it's happened to two modules now.

Out of curiosity to see if it was an isolated problem, I decided to create a brand new module with only text on the page and it still had the same issue.

cainam

Probably should submit a ticket - maybe even try reinstalling?

andrew-robertson

Thanks @cainam - I didn't want to bother the support team if it was something stupid. I have 3 other people on the team with the same version of software as I have, so I will have them check it tomorrow to see if something funky is going on, but in the meantime I will open a ticket.

As always, I appreciate your expertise.

pbiswane4536

Hi Andrew, I just saw your post. Strangely enough, my colleagues and I have the same problem. We recently updated to Lectora 19.04. @team elearning brothers, do we also need to create a ticket number? It seems like a universal problem to me.

andrew-robertson

Well, at least it is not just me lol. I've submitted a ticket last night so I'll post what i hear from them.

Out of kicks - I decided to open it in my Lectora 18 which I still had installed and RUN/PREVIEW work fine. Out of curiosity, if I were to finish up my project in Lectora 18 will I be shooting myself in foot finishing up the project in 18 and then when there is a fix go back to 19?

chris_willis

Hey, all -- thanks for bringing this to our attention. We're aware of this issue and are looking into it.

cainam

If the only problem is the run mode (and preview in browser works fine), then you can keep working in 19. (The preview mode problem shouldn't affect the output).

wheels

Try closing all instances of Lectora. Either reboot, or go into task manager and see if you find trivserver.exe still running. If you do, terminate it. After that start Lectora v19, see if it works. If that is the issue we can give you a way to fix it.

andrew-robertson

Thank you @chris_willis , do you know of a fix or whats causing the problem or is that still under investigation?

--
@cainam you are correct, I was able to test it OK'ish with the PREVIEW button. I know that once I outputted to SCORM PKG for upload to the LMS , it worked no problem (i did this last night). My only issue I encounter is the rapid fixes and hte fact that my IT Department has our PCs locked down fairly hard and the RUN/REVIEW was super nice for quick testing of a certain page.

--
@wheels thanks for the suggestion.

It was really odd. I attempted to make the javascript button for mailto: and of course my coding was incorrect so i fixed it and got it working. That being said, every time that I attempted to test it with the javascript that was not correct it would show me that white screen problem. Once I removed the code snippet/action, I'd reboot my computer and voila it would be working again.

But most recently (which prompted this message to the forum and a support request) after a restart it didn't resolve the problem. I am going to uninstall the Lectora 18 completely from my workstation and do a fresh reboot. Do you know if there is any CACHE that Lectora holds onto? I feel like something is in that folder causing something funky.

UPDATE: I completely removed Lectora 18 and the problem is still occuring.

andrew-robertson

Another quick update. Here is what I see from my DEBUG log which I just figured what the heck i might as well click on it...

jholland

andrew-robertson said:

It was really odd. I attempted to make the javascript button for mailto: and of course my coding was incorrect so i fixed it and got it working. That being said, every time that I attempted to test it with the javascript that was not correct it would show me that white screen problem. Once I removed the code snippet/action, I'd reboot my computer and voila it would be working again.

Yes, a completely white screen in Run/Preview or in a browser or when published usually means you have code that has crashed. If running in a browser on your LMS or server, we suggest opening Developer Tools with F12 and then choosing the "Console" tab and look for red errors.

In Run/preview mode, not all scripting is supported, so the "crash" also might be a limitation of trying to run some code on a local browser that the code really needs a full web environment to run.

When you created the javascript, did you bring it into your course as a HTML object? Or did you place it manually into the Lectora Program folders in some way?

I suggest a complete uninstall and then install the latest version 19.0.4 from Windows explorer using the "Run as Administrator" command.

andrew-robertson

jholland said:

Yes, a completely white screen in Run/Preview or in a browser or when published usually means you have code that has crashed. If running in a browser on your LMS or server, we suggest opening Developer Tools with F12 and then choosing the "Console" tab and look for red errors.

Using the PREVIEW option, I was able to observe the error below from the Console Window. I was able to run the module through our LMS without a problem.

Also, something weird occurs - when i put it into PREVIEW mode in the web browser, it opens Page2.html but when I click the next button it tried to go to page149.html which is non-existant. Something odd is going on with the software.

jholland said:

When you created the javascript, did you bring it into your course as a HTML object? Or did you place it manually into the Lectora Program folders in some way?

I brought the object in as Button > Mouse Click > Run JavaScript.

jholland said:

I suggest a complete uninstall and then install the latest version 19.0.4 from Windows explorer using the "Run as Administrator" command.

I just uninstalled and reinstalled and when it was going through the process, my McAfee Endpoint Scanner flagged trivserver.exe as a Trojan. See the image below.

cainam

@andrew-robertson - great to hear! Just one note on something you said previously - the "preview in browser" only works a page at a time (it doesn't publish the whole course, it just publishes that one page to html so that it can be viewed quickly). So whenever you click a button to go to another page, you will get something strange like you described.

carlfink

cainam said:

@andrew-robertson - great to hear! Just one note on something you said previously - the "preview in browser" only works a page at a time (it doesn't publish the whole course, it just publishes that one page to html so that it can be viewed quickly). So whenever you click a button to go to another page, you will get something strange like you described.

To expand on what Adam wrote, you can publish the course to HTML and Preview the entire course from the publishing window. Lectora actually launches a minimal web server locally to serve the course to you, which I happen to think is pretty neat.

andrew-robertson

cainam said:

@andrew-robertson - great to hear! Just one note on something you said previously - the "preview in browser" only works a page at a time (it doesn't publish the whole course, it just publishes that one page to html so that it can be viewed quickly). So whenever you click a button to go to another page, you will get something strange like you described.

Ahh. This is good to know, thank you. I have picked up Lectora purely by trial, error, lots of googling, and the support of the folks on this forum. So for that, I am grateful - thank you again for all your support!!

carlfink said:

To expand on what Adam wrote, you can publish the course to HTML and Preview the entire course from the publishing window. Lectora actually launches a minimal web server locally to serve the course to you, which I happen to think is pretty neat.

I agree. This piece of software is extremely powerful. I liken it to having the tools to build a Ferrari as opposed to the other softwares out there. It is incredible how quickly you can get into trouble without truly knowing it due to all the options and complexities that are provided.