Having Issues with Story Maps....just won't load anything!

[ChristopherWesson]

I've downloaded the Countdown Story Telling template and at first I got it to load some of my own data and just had some bug fixing to do. Somehow I seem to have lost this work so started afresh.

Now on my fresh, clean download I can't even get it to load the sample data! All I get is the egg timer (clock).

The 25 airports should run from the index.html with the default config file correct?
I'm sure it did last time (a few months ago) or was that just my imagination?

I have tried replacing with my own content and I get the same, just the ArcGIS online startup egg timer (clock).
Have tried both Firefox and IE.

HELP me PLEASE!!!

Been working on a map for a blog post since July and got absolutely nowhere with it!

[LeeBock]

Hi Christopher,

Sorry you're experiencing frustration!  Can you provide a URL so we can take a look?

Lee

[ChristopherWesson]

Thanks for the reply Lee.
I don't have a url, I've been using the html file locally and pointing at the shared maps. It worked fine at first.

However since I pretty much gave up and started again, I can now not even get the downloaded files to work.
Correct me if I'm wrong but surely the downloaded html and config files should load the sample maps?

I'm pretty sure they did last time, but I can't even get this to work, just an egg timer.

My steps were download the zip file.
Unzip to a local folder.
Open html file in Firefox and expect to see the sample app.
Egg timer.

Sure last time, I got to see the sample first, then I edited the config file to work with my own maps.
I still had a few errors to iron out, but it was working!

Have I just missed a critical yet stupidly simple step this time around?

Thanks for the help,

Chris

[LeeBock]

Hi Chris,

When you say that you're using the html file locally, does that mean you're pointing to the file using a file system path?  In other words, does the URL in the browser address field start with "file://"?

If that's the case, I would not expect the app to work.  The app is intended to be accessed through a web address, even if it's just your machine's localhost.

Lee

[ChristopherWesson]

Sounds like the obvious step I may have been missing.
Thanks Lee. I'll set it up as a proper URL and give it another go this evening.

[ChristopherWesson]

Solved!

Turns out I was battling two issues:

1) Getting a valid URL (ftp links and dropbox (even public links) don't work, so you need to host it somewhere... but as a non-coder/developer I wasn't keen on trying to deploy an app, instead I managed to ftp transfer it onto my Wordpress site and that worked)
2) The countdown app I have been using is heavily coded to depend upon the fields of rank and level. Strongly advise you make your data match these field names and not the other way round!