News – xAPI and SCORM completion will stop recording…

With the Chrome 80 update in February 2020 is right around the corner. Anyone using xAPI, or SCORM needs to review their current contents. Completion will stop recording on Chrome 80, but not for all. You need to carefully check if this applies to your content.

Impact of this update?

It may prevent the final course (xAPI or SCORM Content) tracking and completion status from reaching your Learning Record Store. Content tracking that happens in the final few seconds, before the learner closes the browser tab, might not get communicated to the LRS.

Browsers Effected

Chrome 80, and future updates only. Completions happening from other browsers will continue to function the same till they decide to follow Chrome.

Why?

Google has announced changes to the browser, beginning with Chrome 80.  As of this version,  expected in February 2020, synchronous XHR will be disallowed during page dismissal when the page is being navigated away from or closed by the user. (In other words, when a learner closes a course by closing the browser window, or by going to a new page, some of the background commands that might previously have been used to send final scores to your LMS will no longer be enabled in the browser)

This involves the following events (when fired on the path of page dismissal): 

• beforeunload, and
• unload

Learn More: Disallow sync XHR in page dismissal
Learn More: LMS reporting issues in Chrome 80

Testing your content for a possible issue?

To check if this will impact your content. You can do this:

1. Launch the content
2. Complete the content. But do not close the tab, lightbox, or window yet. 
3. Check in the LRS or profile page to see if you received the final completed, passed, or failed
4. If not, close the tab where you launched the content. Check the LRS or profile (progress report page) if that sent the data. 
5. If you are getting the completion data on closing the tab. You might not see that data recorded at all in Chrome 80

EDIT (Jan 31, 2020): An easier way to test would be using the Chrome Canary build to test the completion of your content.

What to do if you are affected?  

I am trying to find if there is a workaround, if not found, you will need to advise users not to use Chrome after the Chrome 80 release

You will most likely need to work with the authoring tool provider to find a solution. 

You have a very limited time to act. The update is expected on Feb 4, 2020. To buy some more time, to implement a permanent fix:

A temporary opt-out is available via Origin Trial “Allow Sync XHR In Page Dismissal”. Click here to know more

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Known Authoring Tools

So, far-known authoring tools that have issues are:

• iSpring Presenter 
• Adobe Captivate (We have a possible patch, contact us)

If you are using these tools, you need to check your content immediately and contact the authoring tool provider. If you are using another tool, and find that there is an issue, please let us know so that we can update the list here.