The Multimedia lesson type allows you to include websites, and other content already hosted elsewhere online, directly within your Thinkific course. More info
If you've created a Multimedia lesson, but you or your students are seeing a white screen when viewing it, you can follow the troubleshooting guide below to quickly get to the bottom of the issue.
Confirm that the content is "iframeable"
The first thing to note is that the Multimedia lesson type uses an iframe to embed the content into your course, so in order for something to work as a Multimedia lesson it must be "iframeable".
Sometimes sites are just not compatible with iframing. You can use this free tool to confirm whether or not the content you're trying to use is iframeable.
Google is an example of a site that cannot be iframed. If you try to save a URL that is not iframeable, you will receive an error message:
Some platforms like Google docs support iframing, but require a specific set up in the document. In this case, you will see an error message like this:
Learn how to Configure a Google Doc to Allow IFraming HERE.
Take a look at your Source URL
Whether the Source URL you're using for the Multimedia lesson is a https (secure) or http (non-secure) link will also play a part.
You cannot link to non-secure links from an https page. So, if you or a student visits your Thinkific site via, e.g. https://yoursite.thinkific.com, they'll end up in the course player under https and any Multimedia lessons using a non-secure link (e.g. http://typeform.com) will show as a white screen.
Therefore, the best option is to always use https links (e.g. https://typeform.com) wherever possible.*
*NOTE: Some sites may not have an https option (you'll know this because trying to visit the site will show a security message). The large majority of sites do have this option, so it shouldn't come up too often. If it does, simply be sure to use http links for your Thinkific site instead.
"Zip file must contain at least one html file" error
This error occurs if your content has not been zipped properly and our uploader is not able to find the HTML file that your content is built on:
To fix this issue, make sure that your content is included in the zip file's root directory. This means that as soon as you open your zip file, you should see an HTML file available (typically named index.html or story.html).
Here is an example of how to compress your files into a zip file. You can see below that when selecting the files to add to a zip folder, you can see the story.html file on the screen when zipping the content.
If you're still having troubles with your Multimedia lesson content, please get in touch with our Support team.