Inventor 2015 overview videos won't play

[DaveGadgeteer]

When I try to view the overview videos after installing Inventor 2015, I get a message that this video has not been encoded compatibly with my machine (Windows 8.1 under Parallels 9 on a Mac), and I'm supposed to load more codecs.

I've looked for codecs, and there seem to be a lot of them, some of which are expensive, and many of which seem irrelevant.

Could someone point me to a codec/package that is suitable?

I don't want to become an expert on codecs, I just want to use Inventor 2015.

Searching for help on this, it seems to be a long-standing issue. Amazing.

Dave Gustavson

[emily.xu]

Please check if this post can help you.

[DaveGadgeteer]

No, I can play the online videos in IE; it's the ones that are supposed to be installed with Inventor for offline use that don't work.

[DaveGadgeteer]

I followed the link and its advice.

However, IE has Flash player enabled, so that's not the problem.

When I use the Tutorial links in Inventor, the result is always a video window that won't play, saying "This video isn't encoded for your device."

I'm running up-to-date Windows 8.1, Inventor 2015.

[TravisNave]

I have had luck lately running Autodesk videos with the VLC player rather than Media Player.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Good Luck!

[DaveGadgeteer]

I'm talking about the videos that are supposed to run inside Inventor--

How would I get Inventor to use VLC to display them?

There was a post that said Inventor goes to IE to find drivers, but does it also go to VLC and other apps?

I would have expected Inventor to provide a viewer itself, or at least ensure that the system has one, instead of just announcing that it hadn't encoded the videos properly. Seems like a design oversight to me--it worked on the developer's machine for some reason, and he didn't realize he was relying on some magic component that not everyone else has installed.

Again, I'm not talking about the online videos, which work fine via a browser when I'm able to be online.

Dave

[TravisNave]

Ah, I misinterpretted. 

[maulik_patel]

Hi Dave,

To view Help –Essential Skills Videos in Inventor, You need to have flash player plug in(version 10 or higher).

You can get one from here.

OR

You can watch the same videos in Inventor from ‘Learning' page.

1.        From ‘Get Started’ Ribbon tab, Click on ‘Learning’.

-          Click on ‘Start Here’ To see Overview videos.

-          Click on ‘Sketch’/ Click on ‘Get Started with Sketch’ to watch Sketch video.

-          Click on ‘Part’/ Click on ‘Get Started with Part’ to watch Part video.

-          Click on ‘Assembly’/ Click on ‘Get Started with Assembly’ to watch Assembly video.

-          Click on ‘Drawing’/ Click on ‘Get Started with Drawing’ to watch Drawing video.

Hope this helps.

[bussell]

The provided answer is not sufficient to get me out of the same hole others have found themselves in.  I am a first-time user just cracking open the tool.  The first thing the program wants me to do is to watch a video.  That video link fails, there is no error message.  When I go to the "Learning" tab the video links tell me the videos are not encoded for my machine.  I am running a new dell, vanilla box.

This repeatable program defect needs to be addressed.  It is not acceptable for the video links to fail out of the box without a pathway to achieving resolution within the program.  Given the videos must play inside the program, and that my flash player is up to date in my browser, and I still cannot play the videos, I am left with the sinking feeling that this package is not the solid solution I am looking for.  The link provided for the Flash player has no relevance to Autodesk on the face of it, and the web widget is telling me I am up-to-date.

I then had a horiible thought, what if Autodek was going to force me to use a specific browser even though they did not indicate one anywhere on the page I was trying to use?  I fired off IE and went to the Flash update site.  I updated the IE browser's Flash player.  The player in Inventor still did not work.  Another missed step I figured, so I restarted Inventor.  I can now watch the introductory video.

Please clean this up.  This took far too long and will become a story of embarasement for first-time users.

For those that face this later:

1) make sure you have Internet Explorer installed and up to date

2) make sure you have the Adob Flash player in IE updated from here

3) restart Autodesk Inventor

[DaveGadgeteer]

You should be added to the AutoDesk support staff!

I don't think AutoDesk has ever watched a new user struggle on a new machine. Stuff always works on their own systems, so it's obviously the new user's problem. I eventually did something that got it working well enough, but I don't know what did the trick, I only know I wasted a lot of time. So thanks for figuring that out! I remember going through spirals of installs and updates of unobvious stuff that perhaps didn't work because I should have known to restart, I don't know. Very time consuming.

This is not the only example.

Another ongoing problem for me has been trying to figure out whether there's been an update, i.e. whether I'm running the current version of Inventor. It's not evident to me how to find out what version I'm running. About a year ago they added a new tool to help with the problem, which supposedly checks and lets you know when there's an update. However, when I see and run the tool it seems always to start by saying I'm up to date, then goes into an endless spinning pattern that implies it's checking to see whether there's an update or not. As far as I can tell, it never finishes, just spins forever. Perhaps it's just a decorative flourish, or perhaps it's a bug. Who knows. I just now launched Windows to get the name of this app, but I can't see it now and don't remember what it is called so can't search for it.

Perhaps Windows has a standard way to find out version information? I'm not a Windows user--I only run Windows 8.1 under Parallels 10 under OS X.10 on my Mac because Inventor isn't available on a Mac directly. I know I could learn Windows, but life is complicated enough already--which is why I switched to Mac years ago. On a Mac there's About in each app's menu, which tells the version you're running. I've poked around, but haven't found the Windows equivalent. Many apps even have a menu item that checks for the existence of updates, and installs new updates at your request. That saves a lot of time! I do wish AutoDesk would port Inventor to the Mac--for me it would be a lot more efficient. 

These hassles (among others) make me a reluctant and thus infrequent user, which has another unintended consequence that makes it even more of a hassle: When I start Windows, or when I quit, Windows begins to install a large number of accumulated updates. On a real stationary computer that wouldn't be so awkward, because Windows offers to turn the machine off when it's done. But under Parallels on a Mac, a virtual computer, it means I can't just close my MacBook and go home--I just have to wait and wait for an unpredictable length of time, or presumably ("Do not turn the power off!") risk virtual-disk corruption. I find it really horribly unfriendly, as it either delays my work or makes me late for my next appointment. Painful.

Dave

[jaredshoover]

I am experiencing the same issue with the essential skills videos section.  Flash is up to date and tested to be functioning properly in IE (as suggested in previous posts).  The interactive tutorial path videos function properly with sound and audio (as to the post in which I am responding).  Once the basic tutorial path has been accomplished there is a link to 'Want to learn more?' which redirects another screen within Inventor application, which appears to be a part of the 'Help' section of the v2015 application.

On the navigation tree to the left .............Onboarding Videos >> Essential Skills Videos >> *

None of these videos work.  'This video isn't encoded for your device"

Where are these *.webm video files located within the installation directory or online?

Thanks for the assistance in advance.

-Jared

[maulik_patel]

Hi Jared,

Many thanks for reporting this issue. It looks like you have IE as a default browser and installed flash player for IE.

Please review this blog to get those videos working on your machine.

I hope this helps.

[bmihura]

I too have a new Windows 8.1 Pro computer with Autodesk Professional 2015 and nothing in this string of 12 posts has worked, including that last out-of-date blog link which doesn't have the items in the "Solution" any more.

Is it possible to contact a live person via phone or chat to be able to play a video INSIDE Autodesk? I've spent over two hours on these blogs so far with no luck. The very first thing my brand new Autodesk has attempted has failed (can't play a video? really?).

Or how about building an equivalent web site rather than attempting to play the videos internally, since Autodesk is incapable of doing this?

[maulik_patel]

Hi,

Many thanks for reporting this issue on forum.

In order to play 'Help videos' in Inventor, you need Adobe flash player plugin for chromium based browser.

Here is how you can install it on win8.1.

1. If you are using Internet Explorer as default browser.

• Browse to https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/installation-problems-flash-player-windows.html.
• Scroll down to ‘Still Having problems’ section, Click on ‘Flash player for Firefox – NPAPI’.
• When prompt, click ‘Run’ which should start installation/ Install it.

2. If you are using Firefox or Google Chrome as default browser.

• Browse to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
• Download and install ‘Adobe flash player system plug-in’.

Hope this helps.

[bmihura]

Still no video, thanks for trying.



Now I'm up to 2:15 invested in trying to watch these videos.



Bruce