ComboBox issue w/ imported swf assets

Question

I've imported a swf into my actionscript code which contains a combobox (instance name of "cb"). I'm having an issue with not being able to set the "prompt" property from within the code and also with the first item in the combobox always remaining blank.
When I compile my project withing FlashDevelop, the combobox populates all the items properly, but always leaves the first item (item 0) blank. When I try to assign the "prompt" property to a string, it has no effect - the first item always remains blank. When choosing different items in the combobox, the chosen item does not appear in the combobox for the user to see she has chosen it - it just remains blank.
**PLEASE help**
Here is the condensed code:
[Embed(source = "../../../../flash/as3/video_player.swf")]
private var VideoPlayerAssets:Class;
_xVideoAssetsLoader = new EmbeddedAssetSwfLoader(VideoPlayerAssets);
_xVideoAssetsLoader.addEventListener(EmbeddedAssetSwfLoader.EMBEDDED_ASSET_LOADED, videoAssetsLoaded); _xVideoAssetsLoader.loadAssetSwf();
_xVideoControlsSymbol = _xVideoAssetsLoader.getSymbolInstance("VideoControlsHome");
_xVideoControlsSymbol.embedWindow.content.cb.prompt = "Choose a Size"; //THIS HAS NO EFFECT
_xVideoControlsSymbol.embedWindow.content.cb.addItem( { label: "400 x 320", width:400, height:320, data:"400x320" } );
_xVideoControlsSymbol.embedWindow.content.cb.addItem( { label: "480 x 384", width:480, height:384, data:"480x384" } );
_xVideoControlsSymbol.embedWindow.content.cb.addItem( { label: "560 x 448", width:560, height:448, data:"560x448" } );
_xVideoControlsSymbol.embedWindow.content.cb.addItem( { label: "640 x 512", width:640, height:512, data:"640x512" } );
_xVideoControlsSymbol.embedWindow.content.cb.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, sizeSelected);

Answer 1

Unbelievable...
So after two days of trying shorter animations, pouring over countless amounts of code, sifting through result after result of google searches, it all came down to a 2-second delay.
When I imported the .swf into Catalyst, I set the delay to 2 seconds before playing the animation. I uploaded it to the test server, and the freezing went away. I tried several other swf files, and they all played perfectly! Granted, there's a tiny delay before the animation plays, but its better than having it play right off the bat then watching it hang.
Is this a caching or buffering issue? I would think that, when the Catalyst swf loads, it would start pre-loading the animations before it played (unless if there's a way to do that on the original .swf, but I'm not that versed in AS3 to figure it out). That may be a feature worth having in future Catalyst versions.
So, for anyone experiencing an issue where their animations hang (i.e.: an imported banner): when you import it into Catalyst and set it to play, place a 1 or 2 second delay on it before it starts playback. That should give it time to load up.