Storyline and Studio: Audio Might Not Play in Google Chrome

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Looking for info on videos not working in Chrome? Click here.

Early in 2018, Google stopped autoplaying audio in Chrome 66. This change broke a lot of web content, such as e-learning courses with audio introductions. The internet community cried for help, so Google temporarily rolled back the policy, giving everyone time to update their content.

With the release of Chrome 70 in October 2018, Google stopped autoplaying audio again. And this time, the change is permanent.

Here's how to make your Storyline and Studio courses work in Chrome 70+ and what your learners can expect.

How to Make Audio Work in Google Chrome

Over the summer of 2018, we added support for Google's new autoplay policy to Storyline and Studio. To publish new courses that work in Chrome, install the latest software update. Click here for Storyline 360 and Studio 360 updates. Click here for Storyline 3 updates.

To make existing courses compatible with Chrome without republishing them, simply scan them with our mass update tool. Click here for details.

What Learners Can Expect

In Chrome, learners may see a play button when they launch or resume a course with audio on the first slide. They just need to click the play button to start the course, and audio will play as expected. (And as of July 2021, you can customize the play button screen by adding a course cover photo.)

Audio on other slides should autoplay (unless your slides are set to advance automatically without user interaction).

After a while, learners may stop seeing the play button as Chrome's Media Engagement Index (MEI) learns that they allowed audio to play on previous visits to the same site. When that happens, audio will automatically play as it did in earlier versions of Chrome.