If you use Captivate 9, you may have noticed that Adobe pushed out a new update (9.0.2) last week. This update contains several improvements to the functionality and usability of Captivate 9. For a complete breakdown of these improvements, you can click here. One of the improvements was a much-awaited change to how you access eLearning Brothers templates, games, cutout people, themes, etc. A new Assets tool gives you access to your downloaded assets, to the Adobe Stock Library, and to the eLearning Brothers portal.
We’ve created a short video to show you how to access your eLearning Brothers assets from within Captivate 9.0.2. Watch the video below.
Unfortunately, many Captivate users have reported a blank screen like the one shown below when accessing the eLearning Brothers assets within Captivate.
Let’s look at how to resolve that issue.
Clear Your Preferences
After installing, but before launching Captivate 9.0.2, make sure you’ve cleared your Captivate preferences. There’s a tool that takes care of that for you located in the Utilities (utils) directory of your Captivate installation.
On a Windows machine that can be found here:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 9 x64\utils\CleanPreferencesWin.bat
If you’re using a computer with the Apple Operating System, look here:
/Applications/Adobe Captivate 9/utils/CleanPreferencesMac
This small utility takes just a couple seconds to run. It doesn’t display anything to show you it’s running, as it’s so quick.
Back Up Your Projects, Interactions, and Layouts
These next steps involve deleting folders, so it’s highly recommended that you create a backup folder for your projects, interactions and layouts.
You can find your projects folders:
- Windows: C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Adobe\eLearning Assets\SampleProjects
- Mac OS: /Users/<user account>/Documents/My Adobe Captivate Projects/SampleProjects
Create the backup, copy the files to the backup directory, and then delete the entire SampleProjects folder.
The Interactions folders are here:
- Windows: C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Adobe\eLearning Assets\Interactions_9_0
- Mac OS: /Users/<user account>/Documents/My Adobe Captivate Projects/Interactions_9_0
Same steps as above: Create backup, copy files to backup, delete entire Interactions_9_0 folder.
To find your layouts folders, look here:
- Windows: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Adobe\eLearning Assets\Layouts\9_0
- Mac OS: /Users/<user account>/Documents/My Adobe Captivate Projects/Layouts/9_0
Create and populate the backup, then delete the entire 9_0 folder.
It is also recommended that you open Captivate, clear your cache (Edit>Preferences, then see screenshot below) and restart Captivate 9.\
Once you’ve followed all the steps above, restart Captivate and open the Assets tool. Click on the Get Free eLearning Assets tab and you should see the eLearning Brothers site asking you to log in. You only need to log in once (unless you follow these steps again) to have full access to the full eLearning Brothers Captivate library.
Fire up Captivate 9.0.2 and check out all the new features, but most importantly go grab your eLearning Brothers assets and start creating your Rock Star eLearning courses today.
UPDATE 9/8/2016:
If you are using a 64-bit Windows Operating System to run Captivate 9.0.2, we have some great news for you. We just got word from Adobe that there is a much quicker means of gaining access to the ELB assets in Captivate 9.0.2. The steps are below and I’ve added a video as well.
Before following the steps below make sure Captivate isn’t running on your system currently.
Step 1: Download the .zip file
Start by downloading the CaptivateUI.zip file from this link: http://www.elearningbrothers.com/blogs/downloads/CaptivateUI.zip
Step 2: Unizp the file
Pick a location that you’ll remember and unzip the contents of the folder to that location.
Step 3: Rename the current file
Browse to your Captivate installation directory (usually found at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 9 x64) to find and rename the current CaptivateUI.dll file to CaptivateUI_build.dll
Step 4: Move the downloaded file
Move the CaptivateUI.dll file that you downloaded from the unzipped directory to the Captivate installation directory listed above.
Step 5: Launch Captivate
Launch Captivate and open the Assets tool. Then go to the Get Free eLearning Assets tab and you should see the eLearning Brothers interface with all of our Captivate assets.
If those steps don’t work, the program should generate a log file (called logFile.txt) that is placed in your default Documents folder. Send that to us and we’ll follow up with Adobe.
Watch this video to see these steps in action.
Has anyone experienced issues where they walk through this process and then lose access to the Assets tab altogether? Now when I click on Assets, nothing happens at all.
Leanne,
I have not heard of this happening before, but I’d be happy to help you troubleshoot.
Would you mind answering a few questions?
When you say “nothing happens at all”, what specifically do you mean? Can you share a screenshot or a more detailed explanation?
What Operating System (Mac/Windows) and Captivate version are you using?
Did you perform the backups as indicated before starting this process?
Once I have some of those answers, I will be better able to help troubleshoot the issue.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for getting back to me! When I say “nothing happens at all,” I mean when I click on the Assets option in-product, there’s no window. There’s no action whatsoever. Here’s a screencast of what happens when I click Assets vs. other in-product options like Community or Publish: http://screencast.com/t/LagNuljAujuO. As for the technical details, I’m on Win 10 using Captivate 9.0.2.421. I also performed the backups as detailed in the steps above.
Thanks for your help,
Leanne
Leanne,
That is an interesting one…I haven’t seen that behavior before. It appears to me that something happened with the update. I’m not privy to all the inner workings at Adobe, so I’d suggest you open a ticket with them, or at the very least, post on their forums. I am on the forums as well so I’ll keep an eye out for the solution if it comes that route, but either way, I’d love to find out what the solution was in case I run into this again.
I can get these Assets pop up and download, but I didn’t see any login page? I can download assets fine. I still can’t login by eBrothers website.
You would have created the account when you first downloaded and used Captivate 9. It should remember that login going forward. If you need to figure out your login credentials, feel free to contact us through support@elearningbrothers.com.
Thank you for the steps to cure my blank white screen when trying to access my Free Assets in CP9.0.2. When I had first updated to 9.0.2 I was chagrined to have to rebuild all my preferences as I have extensively configured things, so I was glad to not have to go through that again.
Glad this worked out for you!
I was able to follow the steps and access the eLearning Brother assets, but now when I view the page I am seeing two pages, one on top of the other. The top one is smaller than the bottom which fills the window. I’m not able to look at the examples or click on the buttons because the smaller window is in the way.
Jenica,
I haven’t seen this behavior happen before, so I’m interested in finding out what is causing it. Would you be able to send a screenshot or video capture of what you are seeing. That might give me a good place to begin troubleshooting.
Thanks.
Hi. My coworker and I are both running Captivate 2017. We have started having an issue where we download an asset from eLearning brothers. We both get the message that it is downloaded, and is located in our Assets… but it isn’t. This is a recentish problem – we haven’t had this issue before. Any guidance would be appreciated.
We have discovered that, due to some updates made by Adobe, this feature isn’t currently working. We’re waiting to hear from the folks at Adobe on the fix. In the meantime, you can download the needed assets from our website and then just load them into Captivate as you would any other image or asset. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Has this issue been fixed yet or is a workaround available? I’ve got the assets downloaded but can’t get them into Captivate. What are “the steps” to load individually into the file?
Hey Christopher, contact Support@elearningbrothers.com for the steps!
Thanks for this info and also thanks for all the assets! 🙂