Flash 8 crashes when publishing (Mac 10.3.9)

Question

I've searched the forums and haven't found an instance that
is relevant enough to my situation.
Pretty basic, really. I have a registered version of Flash
and I go to publish. Not doing anything crazy with the publish
settings. The document I'm working on isn't immense or overly
complex, either.
It gets about 1/3 or 1/2 through publishing it, then crashes
(i.e., "The application Flash has unexpectedly quit.").
This is part of the message that my OS sends to Apple...
"Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x0e8e8d9e"
What's all that about?
From what I've read, Flash is a bit buggy (hit & miss)
with this whole crashing thing.
Anybody have any links or idears on how to get this fixed (or
at least working better/more reliably)?
I've repaired permissions, run Onyx (i.e., deleted system
cache, etc. etc.), restarted, updated, repaired permissions,
restarted. . .
In a pickle...
Can some kind soul help me out? I hate pickles...
Thanks,
-j

Answer 1

Well, I talked to Adobe support last night for about an hour
and this is the scoop. Evidently, I was only having problems with
one of my documents. I was able to successfully publish a different
document. I was also able to save it, too. This document, however,
was much simpler than the one I was having problems with.
In my troublesome document, I had imported some .swf
animations that I had exported from ImageReady. I didn't realize
that Flash creates a .swf library symbol,
and two library instances of
each frame (a bitmap and a movieclip symbol).
I realized that I had many, many duplicates and duplicates of
duplicates. My document had become ridiculously huge (~227MB). I
deleted all those instances, re-imported the .swf file and got my
file size down to about 77MB. I was now able to save my document,
but I still couldn't publish it.
So, the support guy told me to go into "Publish Settings",
click on the "Formats" tab and deselect "HTML". Click the publish
button at the bottom of the dialogue window and presto! It
published (albeit without the HTML file).
That's about where it ended. The support guy couldn't figure
out why this document was crashing Flash when trying to publish
both the .swf
and .html files. He recommended a work-around of creating
the HTML file in Dreamweaver. I had already been hand-coding the
html file as a work-around, so that's where we left it.
So, this is what I learned:
1. Repair permissions, run Onyx & clear your system cache
(don't have Onyx for 10.3.x? You can download the
zip
file. You need admin access. Be careful with it, you can screw
up your computer. Be conservative with the settings. Use at your
own risk).
if this doesn't solve it, then:
2. Make sure you're up-to-date on your system software, Flash
software, and Flash player. Repair permissions again after updating
any software.
if this doesn't solve it, then:
3. Go to Users > username > Library > Application
Support > Macromedia and rename the Flash 8 folder as "Flash 8
old". Flash will create a new folder when you load it (it's an app
preference folder). You may delete "Flash 8 old" if this solution
doesn't end up really screwing things up (or you can delete it if
it fixes your problem). If this solution does end up creating
problems (or if you had certain settings you just can't lose),
delete the new "Flash 8" folder and rename "Flash 8 old" to "Flash
8".
If it still doesn't work, re-evaluate your .fla:
4. Limit the size and complexity of your .fla (delete
superfuous library instances)
5. Library instances can become corrupt, leading to a crash
(delete suspect ones, re-create them)
6. Fonts can become corrupt, leading to a crash (validate
your fonts)
7. Importing .swf files into your .fla file is iffy, due to
different compression(?) settings. This could be the culprit in my
circumstance. I may try doing a loadmovie deal on it at some
point... when I figure out where/when it could be loaded in the
background.
7. Publish your .fla without the .html document.
If all else fails and your Flash app just ain't workin', here
are instructions for uninstalling the studio (and it appears,
individual applications):
Studio TechNote
8f101099
Hope this helps!
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