Answer to an old question

Question

Rando Wiltchek was kind enough to provide feedback to me on
the issue below.
I have included his comments and my original post (avec
explitives) below
them.
From Rando,
FIRST:
All I had to do was add a simple
on prepareMovie
clearGlobals
end prepareMovie
and it never came back!
AND...
You made me understand what is going on - director maintains
global
values even after restarting the movie. So if a parent script
is hooked up with a global value, it's script is not
recompiled there.
Now if you change your code, the script in memory still
points at lines
in your code for debugging, which of course are not correct
anymore.
So if your changes are not in sync with the memory resistent
scripts
anymore, any exception that is thrown from there, points are
"random"
places in your script.
With the clearGlobals command (which I was not aware of,
until you
wrote about it), these parent scripts are released from
memory and
won't raise exceptions anymore.
With
on prepareMovie
clearGlobals
end prepareMovie
I can make sure that it happens every time I restart my
movie.
Regards,
Rando
Here is my original post
Can anyone tell me why the %^$& I get a "script cast
member not found"
error?
I've been working in Director for 17 years and I get this
from time to time.
I generally just copy the code from the behavior, paste it
into a new
behavior, name the new one the same as the old on, then copy
the new cast
member over the old one and it solves it. But it happened
rarely enough
that I didn't bother questioning why. I know it's not a
syntax error
because the code runs fine after the above process. But it
does only
happens when I've made a change to the code in that behavior.
Now I'm working with a simple movie with one parent script
and a
prepareMovie handler that instantiates one child object and
I'm getting this
darn error all the time. My above solution isn't working
anymore. The
error points to the first line of a particular handler. That
first line was
a comment. So I got rid of the comment and the new first line
of the
handler is code and the error points to it. If you see where
I'm headding,
no matter how many lines of "errored" code I get rid of the
error alert will
always point to the first line of that handler.
I'm sure many have seen this because it's happened in almost
every version
of Director I've owned. And by the way, I'm in MX on a PC.
Craig Wollman
Lingo Specialist
Word of Mouth Productions
212-928-9581
www.wordofmouthpros.com
Craig Wollman
Lingo Specialist
Word of Mouth Productions
212-928-9581
www.wordofmouthpros.com

Answer 1

That would be true if the stopMovie handler actually ran when
this syntax
error comes up. After getting rid of the error dialog,
clearGlobals has to
be run so one would have to go to the message window and type
in
"clearGlobals" and CR for it to be effective. And if the
movie was run
again without doing this the error would keep coming up. That
was the
problem. So having it in the prepareMovie allows the movie to
run correctly
immediately after the error dialog is cleared.
Craig Wollman
Lingo Specialist
Word of Mouth Productions
212-928-9581
www.wordofmouthpros.com
"alchemist" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Might be better to use:
> on stopMovie
> clearGlobals
> end
>
> Otherwise, your objects will remain active after you
stop the movie - and
> this could cause several problems while authoring.
>
> "forum.macromedia.com" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Rando Wiltchek was kind enough to provide feedback
to me on the issue
>> below. I have included his comments and my original
post (avec
>> explitives) below them.
>>
>> -------------------
>> From Rando,
>>
>> FIRST:
>>
>> All I had to do was add a simple
>>
>> on prepareMovie
>> clearGlobals
>> end prepareMovie
>>
>> and it never came back!
>>
>> AND...
>>
>> You made me understand what is going on - director
maintains global
>> values even after restarting the movie. So if a
parent script
>> is hooked up with a global value, it's script is not
recompiled there.
>> Now if you change your code, the script in memory
still points at lines
>> in your code for debugging, which of course are not
correct anymore.
>> So if your changes are not in sync with the memory
resistent scripts
>> anymore, any exception that is thrown from there,
points are "random"
>> places in your script.
>> With the clearGlobals command (which I was not aware
of, until you
>> wrote about it), these parent scripts are released
from memory and
>> won't raise exceptions anymore.
>>
>> With
>> on prepareMovie
>> clearGlobals
>> end prepareMovie
>>
>> I can make sure that it happens every time I restart
my movie.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rando
>>
>> ----------------------------
>> Here is my original post
>>
>> Can anyone tell me why the %^$& I get a "script
cast member not found"
>> error?
>>
>> I've been working in Director for 17 years and I get
this from time to
>> time.
>> I generally just copy the code from the behavior,
paste it into a new
>> behavior, name the new one the same as the old on,
then copy the new cast
>> member over the old one and it solves it. But it
happened rarely enough
>> that I didn't bother questioning why. I know it's
not a syntax error
>> because the code runs fine after the above process.
But it does only
>> happens when I've made a change to the code in that
behavior.
>>
>> Now I'm working with a simple movie with one parent
script and a
>> prepareMovie handler that instantiates one child
object and I'm getting
>> this
>> darn error all the time. My above solution isn't
working anymore. The
>> error points to the first line of a particular
handler. That first line
>> was
>> a comment. So I got rid of the comment and the new
first line of the
>> handler is code and the error points to it. If you
see where I'm
>> headding,
>> no matter how many lines of "errored" code I get rid
of the error alert
>> will
>> always point to the first line of that handler.
>>
>> I'm sure many have seen this because it's happened
in almost every
>> version
>> of Director I've owned. And by the way, I'm in MX on
a PC.
>>
>> --
>> Craig Wollman
>> Lingo Specialist
>> Word of Mouth Productions
>> 212-928-9581
>>
>> www.wordofmouthpros.com
>>
>>
>> --
>> Craig Wollman
>> Lingo Specialist
>> Word of Mouth Productions
>> 212-928-9581
>>
>> www.wordofmouthpros.com
>>
>
>