Soundslides Forum

Old Soundslides broken on iOS 14 and Safari 14?

#1

We’re still on Soundslides from 2013 (unsure of the version) and everything works fine in Chrome, however on iOS 14 and Safari 14, the JS player is being properly served however the slideshows no longer play and audio doesn’t work. You can still click through the timeline to view the individual images, however you can’t play through with audio.

Has anyone else experienced this? We have about 100 slideshows in the old format and don’t have the source/project files any longer, so our only option at the moment is to debug. Any help would be most appreciated!

#2

Hi @ds1.

Those old slide shows will need to be updated. There are several methods for updating version 1 shows, even if you don’t have the original project files.

The most typical method is to import your old show (a zip of whatever you currently have on the server should work) into the Soundslides web app, then either export them to video files or host them with us.

If you need to host the existing files on your own servers, we may be able to create a custom drop-in solution.

Is it possible to email (or post here) the URL of one of your shows?

It would be helpful to see exactly what version you have online.

You can reach me at help@tungite.com.

-joe

#3

I appreciate the lightning fast reply!

Here’s an example - https://www.vetprep.com/features.jsp

If you scroll down to PowerLectures and then click on Equine Cardiology.

I was able to take the files from an old lecture and import it using the import tool, which is magic! That said, we have about 100 of these and while we do have video hosting, it’s configured for 16:9 so I’m not sure yet how the layout will handle 4:3 yet. Basically, our “lectures” are v1 (Soundslides) and v2 (video) so in a perfect world, we’d debug the (hopefully) simple reason that our existing Soundslides embed JS is being wonky so everything that’s online now starts working again, and then work behind the scenes to replace them all with videos. In a perfect world of course :slight_smile:

#4

Thanks, that link helped a lot.

That “Equine Cardiology” slide show is using the very first javascript-based Soundslides player. It’s basically trying to initialize Flash, then using HTML5/Javascript as its fallback.

There were several newer v1 players, with the last released in early 2016. You should be able to just copy its files into your slide show directories and you’ll be working again. The player’s design will look different, but this v1 player still works on iOS 14.0.1, and Safari 14.0.

Give this a try:

  1. Download the last Soundslides 1.x player files (here’s a zip).

  2. Unzip the file. You should see an HTML file and a directory.

  3. Make a copy of your “Equine Cardiology” show’s directory, then copy the items from the zip in there. The “iframe.html” file should overwrite the older, existing version.

  4. Load the new iframe.html in your browser. Note: these old shows won’t play from your local desktop; they need to be served from a web server in order to function.

Let me know how it goes. If it doesn’t work, there are still a few things we can try.

You can change a show’s aspect ratio (under the Settings’ tab) in the new web app. A 4:3 show will still have “black bars” on the left and right, but it will export at 16:9 if that’s what you need.

Joe

#5

Brilliant - thank you! We’ll give that fix (the newer player files) a go. And knowing the 4:3 / 16:9 with black bars setting config would work as a backup, I think we’re in a good place. Thanks so much and I’ll post back after we’ve updated the files.

#6

And we’re back in business. The fix (updating to 1.0.7) worked like a charm. Thanks again for the stellar support!