Actionscripting bugs?

I am by no means an actionscripting guru - much heavier on
the 'eye candy' side of things. I don't ever get much past the
basics like "stop" "gotoplay" and "geturl" - which brings me to a
question to ask the gurus.
Have any of you had problems with actionscripting locking up
on FLA's - suddenly - when it's never happened before in a
particular file or project? I'm using Pro 8 and things have been
fine - but just within the last few days - I went to update a
website FLA that I update every month and publish and WOW! It
drained all my resources - took a long time to 'fire up' and took a
long, long time to publish. It was a 4 meg FLA. It does have some
"geturl" linking on it as well as quite a few "stops" - "gotoplay"
- but nothing like long lengthy scripts.
I decided to fire up some other FLA from other projects and
noticed that the ones that had the least actionscripting - fired
right up - even the larger CD project FLA's (75 meg) - but the ones
with any url type linking or lots of linking within the FLA seem to
be giving me fits - out of the blue! Anyone else experienced this
and can it have anything to do with actionscript 1 vs. actionscript
2 deal or using to the new (old) actionscripting "prompt" feature
when in Pro 8?

embedding fonts also lag your compiling time.
Try this.
create a new flash document, don't do anything else other
than embed all fonts.
see how long it takes you to compile
as far as i can tell, i hadn't got any issue with compiling
and 99% of my stuff are in scripts (yeah, i even script draw my
buttons,
or you could upload the fla somewhere and let others see if
they have any problem with compiling. who knows if something's
corrupted.

Similar Messages

HTML from ActionScript BUG

Keeping track of user actions in HTML from ActionScript
Document-level event listeners can be assigned to the
JavasScriptObject as illustrated in the example below, which traces
each DOM element in the HTML to receive an onmouseup event.
var doc:JavaScriptObject = event.currentTarget.domWindow;
doc.onmouseup = function():void
trace(arguments[0].srcElement);
on first mouse click does not work. It's a BUG???

Hi Golev,
Try registering the Document-level event listeners on the
"complete" event of <mx:HTML>, like the following full
example. Based on your description, it seems those events (such as
doc.onmouseup) are registered on the "click" event instead. If
that's the case, the events won't get registered until the 1st
click and consequently won't get fired until the 2nd click.
quote:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="
http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
layout="absolute">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
public function onHtmlComplete(event:Event):void {
var doc : * = event.currentTarget.domWindow;
doc.onmouseup = function():void {
trace(arguments[0].srcElement);
]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:HTML id="html" location="
http://www.google.com"
complete="onHtmlComplete(event);" />
</mx:WindowedApplication>
/Vincent

Actionscript bug problem loading in Firefox

Please Help.
I'm working on a page at
http://localhost/skitterskatter/gerilance/D4D/index4.html
The page works fine in Internet Explorer on a PC. In Firefox
and some mac browsers when you click on a thumbnail, the image does
not display (an image is supposed to expand out from the thumbnail
into the upper right of the screen). After a page refresh often the
thumbnail actions work.
It seems that the image has to load into the cache before it
can move. I can't figure out how to get this to work. Here is the
actionscript:
var finalWidth = 435; // width for furniture piece
var finalHeight = 295; // height for furniture piece
var initWidth = 10; // initial width and height for furniture
piece that explodes from thumbnail
var initHeight = 10;
var finalX = 570; // Destination X and Y positions for
furniture piece
var finalY = 50;
var stoploop = 0; // counter to determine when furniture
piece is in place
var numberOfCalls = 40; // the number of times a function is
called to reach the final position
var intervalID;
var initX = 0;
var initY = 0;
function startLoading(image, button) {
clearInterval(intervalID);
_root.infoField._visible = true;
myData = new LoadVars();
myData.onLoad = function() {
_root.descr.text = this.theText;
myData.load("./descr/"+image+".txt");
myData = new LoadVars();
myData.onLoad = function() {
_root.nameOfPiece.text = this.theText;
myData.load("./names/n_"+image+".txt");
_root.perice._width = 10;
_root.perice._height = 10;
var whichImage = "./pieces/"+image+".jpg";
loadMovie(whichImage, "_root.perice");
_root.onEnterFrame = function() {
var infoLoaded = _root.perice.getBytesLoaded();
var infoTotal = _root.perice.getBytesTotal();
var percentage = Math.floor(infoLoaded/infoTotal*100);
_root.infoField.text = "loading... "+percentage+"%
InfoLoaded: "+infoLoaded+" InfoTotal: ";
if (percentage>=100) {
var material = "./materials/mat_"+image+".jpg";
var titleimage = "./titles/title_"+image+".jpg";
var design = "./designs/design_"+image+".jpg";
loadMovie(material, "_root.material");
loadMovie(titleimage, "_root.titleimage");
loadMovie(design, "_root.design");
initX = _root._xmouse;
initY = _root._ymouse;
stoploop = 0;
_root.perice._x = initX;
_root.perice._y = initY;
intervalID = setInterval( moveperice, 50 );
delete this.onEnterFrame;
// gotoAndPlay(1);
_root.startagain();
function moveperice() {
_root.perice._x += (finalX-initX)/numberOfCalls;
_root.perice._y += (finalY-initY)/numberOfCalls;
_root.perice._width += (finalWidth-initWidth)/numberOfCalls;
_root.perice._height +=
(finalHeight-initHeight)/numberOfCalls;
stoploop += 1;
if (stoploop >= numberOfCalls) {
clearInterval(intervalID);
slidebar.button1.onRelease = function () {
startLoading("albert", this, initX, initY);
slidebar.button2.onRelease = function () {
startLoading("amy", this, initX, initY);
slidebar.button3.onRelease = function () {
startLoading("david", this);
etc with the rest of the buttons.
Please help.

I couldn't see a problem there using firefox... except that
the size is designed for a higher resolution than what my laptop
has I'm guessing.
For MovieClipLoader examples there are quite a few already in
these forums (you should be able to find them by searching in as1
& as2 for "MovieClipLoader") or you will find examples in the
help files for MovieClipLoader, or livedocs online. Or there's a
simple example here for loading a swf ( a jpg is not much
different) :
http://www.flashgods.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=70

File download code works without error, but no file is downloaded

Hello,
I have a very strange problem -- I am trying to download a
simple file from a server, using virtually identical code to what
is in the FileReference.download() examples. My code executes
flawlessly, I get the browse window to select the location to save
and name of the file, as expected. I click "Save" in the file
dialog, and the window disappears -- but no file. I know my URL is
right, because I can test the URL from the browser, and I get the
file back. But here's the even weirder thing: I threw TCPMon in
between Flex and the server, and discovered that the
FileReference.download() method isn't even sending a request to the
server. If I try the exact same URL through a browser, TCPMon shows
both the request and response. But Flex never registers a request
at all.
Help! I have 100% error free code that follows the
documentation examples but doesn't request or download the file.
Your help is appreciated!
Thanks,
Brad

I found the answer to my problem, but now I want to know WHY
this is, and if it is considered a bug by Adobe -- if anyone out
there has an explanation, that would be great.
I implemented the full set of event handlers, and guess what
-- not only was I not getting any HTTP request being made, but I
also didn't get any event callbacks. Bottom line, I think I found
an Actionscript bug.
The answer to the $64,000 question is this: when the
FileReference object goes out of scope (I had it declared locally),
because the download() call is asynchronous, it doesn't call event
handlers or make a request. It must be garbage collecting it. So
you have to have your variable as a member, not a local variable.
Weird. I find no other objects in Actionscript work like that. I
wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the call
crosses the native boundary (because it is leaving the Flash
sandbox, and interacting with the browser/native OS.
To me, that's like prematurely killing a thread before it has
completed processing just because it has no parent object with a
reference to it. In general, most rules for garbage collection I've
seen in various platforms require either a parent object or thread
of processing to prevent cleanup.
If anyone has an explanation, I'm all ears!
Thanks,
Brad

Sync two sound object

Hi to all!
I have a little question about play sound in Flex (with AIR).
I create two Sound Object and load two mp3 file. Now i want that this two file start playing at the same time, when user click a button.
The problem is that two file, when playing are a little lag (delay of about 1/2 second or less)...
Where is the problem? Is an actionscript bug or is my interpretation of the sound class incorrect?
This is my simplified code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" creationComplete="init()">
<mx:Script>
     <![CDATA[
          public var sound1:Sound;
          public var sound2:Sound;
          public function init():void
               var path:String = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\myuser\\Documenti\\song\\";
               var request1:URLRequest = new URLRequest(path + "file1.mp3");
               var request2:URLRequest = new URLRequest(path + "file2.mp3");
               sound1 = new Sound(request1);
               sound2 = new Sound(request2);
          public function StartSong():void
               sound1.play(0.0, 0.0, null);
               sound2.play(0.0, 0.0, null);
     ]]>
</mx:Script>
     <mx:Button id="Start" x="113" y="101" label="Button" click="StartSong()"/>
</mx:WindowedApplication>
Thanks to all in advance.
Regards.
Luca

I used thse mp3 files:
http://muzakdeezign.com/air/funk_drums.mp3
http://muzakdeezign.com/air/funk_bass.mp3
For your test you use Mp3 file with particular encoding? I try with many mp3 and all havea sync problem.
I used MediaCoder to encode from wav to mp3
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/
But from what I can tell (and have read), it doesn't matter which encoder you use.
here's the code I used:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" creationComplete="appInit()">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
   private var sound1:Sound;
   private var sound2:Sound;
   // appInit()
   private function appInit():void {
    trace("Application ::: appInit");
    var request1:URLRequest = new URLRequest("loops/funk_drums.mp3");
    var request2:URLRequest = new URLRequest("loops/funk_bass.mp3");
    //var request3:URLRequest = new URLRequest(path + "G.mp3");
    sound1 = new Sound(request1);
    sound2 = new Sound(request2);
   // startSong()
   private function startSong():void {
    trace("Application ::: soundCompleteHandler");
    sound1.play(0, 0, null);
    sound2.play(0, 0, null);
   ]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:Button id="Start" x="113" y="101" label="Button" click="startSong()"/>
</mx:WindowedApplication>

[svn] 949: Bug: BLZ-96 - When sending a HttpService request from ActionScript with multiple headers with the same name , it causes a ClassCastException in the server

Revision: 949
Author: [email protected]
Date: 2008-03-27 07:12:59 -0700 (Thu, 27 Mar 2008)
Log Message:
Bug: BLZ-96 - When sending a HttpService request from ActionScript with multiple headers with the same name, it causes a ClassCastException in the server
QA: Yes - try again with legacy-collection true and false.
Doc: No
Checkintests: Pass
Details: Another try in fixing this bug. When legacy-collection is false, Actionscript Array on the client becomes Java Array on the server and my fix yesterday assumed this case. However, when legacy-collection is true, Actionscript Array becomes Java ArrayList on the server. So added code to handle this case.
Ticket Links:
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/BLZ-96
Modified Paths:
blazeds/branches/3.0.x/modules/proxy/src/java/flex/messaging/services/http/proxy/RequestF ilter.java

Hi all!
Just to post the solution to this if anyone ever runs accross this thread...
For some reason i had it bad the first time, don't have time right now to see why but here is what worked for me:
HashMap primaryFile = new HashMap();
primaryFile.put("fileContent", bFile);
primaryFile.put("fileName", uploadedFile.getFilename());
operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("primaryFile", primaryFile);
HashMap customDocMetadata = new HashMap();
HashMap [] properties = new HashMap[1];
HashMap customMetadataPropertyRoom = new HashMap();
customMetadataPropertyRoom.put("name", "xRoom");
customMetadataPropertyRoom.put("value", "SOME ROOM");
properties[0] = customMetadataPropertyRoom;
customDocMetadata.put("property", properties);
operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("CustomDocMetaData", customDocMetadata);
Basically an unbounded wsdl type is an array of objects (HashMaps), makes sense, i thought i had it like this before, must have messed up somewhere...
Good luck all!

[svn] 931: Bug: BLZ-96 - When sending a HttpService request from ActionScript with multiple headers with the same name , it causes a ClassCastException in the server

Revision: 931
Author: [email protected]
Date: 2008-03-26 11:31:01 -0700 (Wed, 26 Mar 2008)
Log Message:
Bug: BLZ-96 - When sending a HttpService request from ActionScript with multiple headers with the same name, it causes a ClassCastException in the server
QA: Yes - we need automated tests for this basic case.
Doc: No
Checkintests: Pass
Details: RequestFilter was not handling multiple headers with the same name properly.
Ticket Links:
http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/BLZ-96
Modified Paths:
blazeds/branches/3.0.x/modules/proxy/src/java/flex/messaging/services/http/proxy/RequestF ilter.java

Hi all!
Just to post the solution to this if anyone ever runs accross this thread...
For some reason i had it bad the first time, don't have time right now to see why but here is what worked for me:
HashMap primaryFile = new HashMap();
primaryFile.put("fileContent", bFile);
primaryFile.put("fileName", uploadedFile.getFilename());
operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("primaryFile", primaryFile);
HashMap customDocMetadata = new HashMap();
HashMap [] properties = new HashMap[1];
HashMap customMetadataPropertyRoom = new HashMap();
customMetadataPropertyRoom.put("name", "xRoom");
customMetadataPropertyRoom.put("value", "SOME ROOM");
properties[0] = customMetadataPropertyRoom;
customDocMetadata.put("property", properties);
operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("CustomDocMetaData", customDocMetadata);
Basically an unbounded wsdl type is an array of objects (HashMaps), makes sense, i thought i had it like this before, must have messed up somewhere...
Good luck all!

Actionscript 2 Bug

Hey everyone,
I'm just trying to sort out a huge bug I have discovered in
Actionscript 2. I'm loading images into a movieclip that is masking
the image. My code looks like what is attached.
The code works fine without the setMask() enabled. There is
no reason that flash should be tracing this: "SECURITY SANDBOX
VIOLATION: whatever.swf tried to access incompatible context." If I
remove the setMask() property, there's no problem, no error, and
everything works fine.
Is setMask() the devil? What gives, Adobe? I've turned on all
my bitmap caching in the properties menu.. everything works fine if
the image isn't dynamically loaded. I'm developing a RIA so the
images obviously need to be dynamically loaded.
Is there a fix to this?
- TK

You say your code "looks like" what you have attached. Are
you certain?
Could it be possible that you jpg is not in the same domain
as your swf.
If so that would very likely be a feature - a security
feature - of flash and not a bug.
when I googled "to access incompatible context" I found a
number of links related to this, including this one, which seems
pertinent:
http://www.visible-form.com/blog/security-restrictions-in-the-authoring-environment/
Its also worth noting that if you are loading bitmaps (e.g.
jpgs) from a different domain then you don't usually have access to
the bitmap data.
There are ways to address this, such as using a helper swf to
do the loading from the same domain as the bitmaps. I suspect that
masking a loaded bitmap from a remote domain might be treated in
the same way as being able to manipulate its bitmap data.
- Just partially informed speculation here, I didn't try it.
Others may know more and either confirm this or rule it out -

ADOBE -- Please note bugs in ActionScript 3.0 documentation

1) When one selects a class to view, the Properties | Methods | Events | Styles | Effects | Constants | Examples   links at the top right, are getting pushed off the browser page (this happens in all Browsers, i.e. Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer (7).
2) The spark.components and other spark classes do not show up in the latest version of Firefox, and also do not display in Adobe Community Help. E.g. the link http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/spark/components/packag e-detail.html lists no classes in Firefox 3.6.13, and also I find the Spark components cannot be seen in Adobe Community Help (even though mine is fully updated). Perhaps this is related?
3) When one selects Packages to see all classes in the left-hand column, if one clicks on a class, one leaves the all packages view, and is placed in the package for that given class. This makes it really difficult to "scroll" through various classes in the all Packages / Classes view, i.e. to simply click one after the other, and see if it is what you want.

Hmm ... I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox and am still getting errors on Windows Vista.   Also tried my XP machine with the following errors:
All from the primary Flex / AS link: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/package-summary.html,
1) If I select the first class in bottom-left-pane, the AAAARecord class, then the "Properties | Methods" links in the upper right disappear off the page on all 4 browsers*. I must stretch the window to 1350 pixels wide (across 2 monitors) before I can see these links. Only in one browser out of 6**, Firefox on XP, do they display correctly in a normal sized / full screen window.
2) Amazingly, in Vista / Firefox 3.6.13, after a reinstall, the first class listed is AbstractEvent, not AAAARecord. The first 4 classes are missing. If I go to the same link in Adobe Community Help -- i.e. search on ActionScript 3.0 Reference, and select the first result, now seeing the exact same URL as the one above -- the first class I see is Accessibility.   The first 19 classes are missing, and classes are missing throughout the bottom-left-pane.
This does not happen in any other browser, but since I want to use Adobe Community Help, and Firefox is my main browser, it is problematic.
3) When I select the AAAARecord class (or the first class that does appear), the bottom-left-pane does change in all browsers / all machines, leaving the All Packages view, such that the bottom-left-pane now displays:
   Package flash.net.dns classes
   AAAARecord
   ARecord
    ... (5 more).
From what I understood you wrote, you are not seeing this?
If this is indeed the intended operation, it makes scrolling through various classes nearly impossible. With the left-bottom-pane getting switched out constantly, one continually loses track when attempting to scroll through various classes.
* Vista Machine Browsers: Firefox, Chrome, and Opera (all latest versions, just installed), and Internet Explorer 7.
** XP Machine Browsers: FireFox latest version (3.6.13), and Internet Explorer 8.

Bug in ActionScript ?

Try this in Flex 3.
Alert.show((3 in [1,2,3]).toString());
For last element of array gives false. For other elements
works fine.
Is is same in Flex 2 ?
Is this a bug or am i missing something ?

Here is an example of not using a loop to set the combo box.
The values are hard-coded but will work the same for data that is
stored in a database and accessed via remoting or HTTPService.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="
http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
layout="absolute">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
private function change_user():void {
states_cb.selectedIndex = users_dg.selectedItem.userStateId;
]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:ArrayCollection id="sts">
<mx:source>
<mx:Object state_name="NONE" state_id="0"/>
<mx:Object state_name="AL" state_id="1"/>
<mx:Object state_name="AR" state_id="2"/>
<mx:Object state_name="AZ" state_id="3"/>
<mx:Object state_name="CA" state_id="4"/>
</mx:source>
</mx:ArrayCollection>
<mx:ArrayCollection id="users">
<mx:source>
<mx:Object user_name="Barbara" userStateId="1"/>
<mx:Object user_name="Carol" userStateId="2"/>
<mx:Object user_name="Dan" userStateId="3"/>
<mx:Object user_name="Ethan" userStateId="4"/>
<mx:Object user_name="Frank" userStateId="null"/>
</mx:source>
</mx:ArrayCollection>
<mx:ComboBox x="237" y="9" id="states_cb"
labelField="state_name" dataProvider="{sts}"
width="80"></mx:ComboBox>
<mx:DataGrid x="10" y="10" dataProvider="{users}"
itemClick="change_user()" id="users_dg">
<mx:columns>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="User"
dataField="user_name"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="state id"
dataField="userStateId"/>
</mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>
</mx:Application>
Vygo

Bug d'affichage dans la fenêtre Actionscript (Flash CS4)

Bonjour,
Je rencontre depuis peu un problème d'affichage du code AS dans Flash CS4, on dirait que certains caractères sont masqués... (cf. capture)
Quelqu'un a déjà eu ce problème ?

Je me rappelle avoir eu ce souci, principalement lié à un problème de police de caractère. Malheureusement, peu de temps après, j'ai migré sur la cs5 et n'y ai plus été confronté… Avez-vous jeté un œil sur le forum en anglais ? Le cas échéant, n'hésitez pas à poster la résolution (ou non) !
PS : avez-vous tenté de changer de polices dans les préférences de l'application ?

Detecting my canon cam device in flash player, getCamera of ActionScript does not detect, Is this a bug ???

Our application uses below snippet of Flex 4.5 sdk code for detecting flash players :
var camera:Camera = Camera.getCamera();
                if (camera) {
                    camera.setMode(640,480,60,true);
                    camera.setQuality(1000,10000);
                    videoDisplay.attachCamera(camera);
                else {
                    Alert.show("No Camera found with your computer");
Above code is fine for the Logitech webcam which am using, We have a requirement to detect Canon EOS digital cams to be recognized as well to detect with the flash player.
but its not recognizable in flash player.
Any help is appreciated!

That connection is supported for tethering....
Barry

Found 2 bugs in new Flash Builder 4.7

Hello.
I've just migrated all of my large projects to the new Flash Builder 4.7 (from 4.6) and they all work well except for the 2 annoying issues:
1. I don't know why, but FB no longer allows me to create "config" packages. It says "config is a reserved word in ActionScript and cannot be used." Wtf? I had lots of projects using such names in FB 4.6 and didn't have any issues with it. Is it a new rule in FB 4.7? If so - then why it was introduced and was introduced only now? ActionScript language and FB exist not the first year... Also after i migrated existent projects i see all "config" packages have non-standard "folder" icon in the source file tree (in the package explorer panel).
2. There are strange warnings started to appear - "the import BLA-BLA-BLA is not used locally", but I am not blind - I see it is used just a little bit below in the code. What is wrong with this?
Please help as I am confused now about what to do... I waited for FB 4.7 for so long and now I think I will need to downgrade...

Hi Infeter,
For 1;
After the number of hours I have lost debugging issues where someone has inadvertently named a variable the same as a package that is on the root, so making it impossible for FB to discern whether I am talking about "aname.veryImportant" as the sub-package "veryImportant" of the package "aname" or the property "veryImportant" of the variable "aname", I welcome any and all new warnings of how a coder may inadvertently break Flash! So, if they are saying it is a reserved word, it is probably because there is a core class, variable or other such that will, at some point, bite you if you name something after it. This has always been the case with, for example "default" - default is a keyword that has real meaning for the compiler and you will not be allowed to define things as "default" because of the potential for confusion (are you issuing the "default" directive in a switch statement or are you referring to the "default" value in your class?). Given that FB has the frankly excellent "Refactor" function to allow you to easily rename packages, members and classes, I'd just be happy to rename the offending items and be glad to have saved myself several hours of painful debug later on.
For 2;
I'm surprised you're seeing this warning for classes that are not used. I've found loads that were added in automatically over the years that simply are not used. I'm loving the way I can clean out about half my import statements now. The thing to do is to comment out the imports and check that everything still works. If it does, then you're laughing, you don't need them. If it triggers errors of not being able to locate the class, then I would put together a code snippet and add it as a comment to your bug report.
G

Is this a bug?: copied movie clip has wrong frame rate and ruins the main movie's sync

Hello,
I am trying to copy a movieclip with a frame rate of 30 frames per second to a movie that has a frame rate of 30 frames per second. Both movies are actionscript 3 movies. When I do this, my copied movie clip's frame rate reverts to 12 frames per second and all my audio synched animation is trashed. Then when I change it back manually to 30 frames per second it makes my main movie's stage animation go crazy at full possible speed and the audio is all out of sync. I have not set export for sharing or action script on this movie clip. I've tried other movie clips that are 30 frames per second and it is all crazy!
Is this a bug? What can I do? I've got 100s of movie clips I need to make. I can't keep remaking them just because flash has a screw loose. I'll go crazy!
-theGibler

Oh sorry I goofed! My main time line is 12 fps! I can't belive I didn't see this before.

Can't believe the caching bug is STILL there

Hi,
I MUST be missing something. It can't be true that this has not been fixed after so many years.
So well, the problem is, every time you load an external asset or file, say for example using a Loader object or a URLLoader object (the same happened in AS2 with MovieClipLoader, LoadVars, XML.load() etc etc, and even before with loadMovie, etc) - every time you load a file, the Flash Player caches that file, and this is independent from your browser: it is Flash Player's own (and primitive) caching mechanism.
Whenever you load a file with the same URL again, no matter whether the file has been changed or not, Flash Player will use the cached copy, and there's NO WAY to prevent that - there are a few workaround that I will discuss later but they don't solve the problem completely, besides being terribly combersome.
Now, the HTTP protocol has a wonderful mechanism to manage the caching of files in an intelligent way, which has been working for years and, I think, was invented even before flash existed, however at least 10 years ago, and it works fine.
If an HTML page has an IMG tag with an image, for example, and if the browser has already a cached version of the image with that URL, the browser will first ask the server for that file and declare it has a cached version with date xxx; if the server's file is not newer than xxx, then the server replies that the file has not changed and the browser can use its cached version (or insist to redownload it if he wishes). But if the file on the server is newer, the server will reply with the new file, and the browser will NEVER show an obsolete cached version of the image (or whatever file).
Now, I don't know why, Flash Player was designed in a very primitive way that ignores this whole mechanism provided and standardised by the HTTP protocol. Flash Player will ALWAYS use a cached version of the file if he has one, it won't worry about veryfying whether it is obsolete or not.
So, unless the user clears its cache, whenever you update an xml, txt, jpg or whatever file that is loaded within your flash application, users that have previously visited the page may still see the old version.
Now, there's an easy workaround for ensuring that a cached version of the file is NEVER used, which is appending a "?somerandomname="+n to the filename, where n is obtained for example as n=(new Date()).value(); in order to ensure that it is always different.
This way, the complete url of the file is always different and the cached version will never be used.
However, this is not a solution either. For small text files it is ok, but for images and swf's for example, you DO want the cached file to be used IF it is not obsolete. Otherwise, returning visitors will always have to wait for the complete download time of everything, including files that have been downloaded yesterday and have not been modified.
So, this problem has been solved ages ago by the HTTP protocol, but the Flash Player is naive and ignores it.
I used to use 2 workarounds: the one I have mentioned for small files (texts, xml's), and the following one for files that can be updated every once in a while:
In the main html page, I append "?lastupdate=dddddd" to the swf name, where dddddd is a manually edited date of the last time something relevant has been updated. So for example:
<object ....... etc etc> <param name="movie" value="mainswffile.swf?lastupdate=20090625"/>... <embed etc etc etc src="mainswffile.swf?lastupdate=20090625"/></object>
Or something like that.
When I update some of the files that are to be loaded, I manually edit the "lastupdate" thing in the html.
Then in the ActionScript programming I use the _root.lastupdate variable to append to the filenames of images or assets I load.
All this is horribly cumbersome and error-prone. Image you deploy a website to a client that will be able to update his own texts and images: you have either to explain him how to edit the html file also, or create some complicated server-side or client-side script to manage the cache-avoiding system. That is, reinventing the wheel, in this case the cache.
Every time a new version of the player was released, I expected it to fix the stupid caching problem and to make my cumbersome tricks obsolete and unnecessary.
I expected to see that the new version would make proper use of HTTP caching protocol specifications, and use cached files ONLY when they are not outdated, after verifying it with the server according to the HTTP protocol.
Every new version of the player was a disappointment.
Then I hope the new version of the language, Action Script 3.0, would fix this.
No, it seems it doesn't.
I've done some tests with AS3 and with my great and sad surprise, the caching "bug" is still there.
Well, the bug, not the "bug": this is a bug proper, because there's no reason why it should work this way.
So, my question is.
Maybe am I missing something? Is there a way, by using some method or property of URLLoader, Loader and/or URLRequest, to tell Flash Player to use the cache in an intelligent way? I mean, in a not-astonishingly-stupid way?
Note that I'm not talking about forcing it to NOT USE cache at all: I mean using a cached version when it is appropriate, and redownloading the file when needed, as all decent http application have done for years.
Perhaps there IS a way to solve this.... It should be the default behaviour and should be transparent, but however, if there is a SERIOUS fix (not a hackaround), that would at least solve the problem.
Do anybody know of a method that really works?
(I have read of people trying by using http headers with caching directives but without success; or in the best case maybe they were able to force never-caching, which is NOT a solution as I explained)
Thanks in advance.
And if there is any Adobe developer listening, please fix this bug since it is really a shame that an application written in 2008 or 2009 suffers from a problem that was elegantly and definitely solved in the XX century.
Regards,
m.

I wrote a long reply and when I posted it it vanished.
I had even control+c'opied it before submitting but it didn't even get into my clipboard.
Shame on this forum (sorry to say that, but that's what I have to say).
So, I'll try to write it again but it won't be the same: the amount of rage is augmented.
Thank you BWolfe for letting me know that Flash now (since last year) has a bug management system. It was also such an enormous shame that it didn't have one.
Adobe used to confuse bug reports with feature requests; now this kind of confusion is still partially there and it is reflected by the voting thing, which is an absolute aberration. In a decent bug management system, the developers take the responsibility to give the bugs the priority they deserve; and no matter how low the priority, even the smallest bug ALWAYS get into the queue.
Now this bug we are discussing has been well known for AT LEAST EIGHT YEARS and I am not exaggerating at all, as I started using flash in 2001 and the issue was already mentioned here and there in forums etc; probably some blind people didn't see it as a bug (rather as a situation you have to face or work around), but it was known. And the very solution, as I already pointed out, was there even before Flash was conceived (well, for the sake of scientifical rigour, I should say, before Flash was commercialized): the HTTP protocol has the capability to perfectly manage file caching in a manner transparent to the higher layer.
So, since I don't believe that nobody at Adobe (formerly Macromedia) has heard about a bug that every intermediate-level actionscript developer in the world knows of, it is already kind of a shame that we have to report it in 2009, but that's ok. But that we have to get votes, no, that's an insult.
Jesus, ActionScript is a programming language, man, A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE... it is not like Photoshop or Premiere; and it seems like in so many years, people who manage it haven't yet realised it completely.
Big Brother contestants should be voted. Feature requests may be voted. Bugs cannot be voted should just be fixed one by one as soon as possible.
Well, sorry for the rant and thank you for the answers.
Hope this gets through this time.

Actionscripting bugs?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for