Flash CS4 crashes when publishing big SWF that previously were working fine

[roninpsp]

Hi all,

This is driving me crazy, I tried looking into Adobe FAQs and other places inside this site but cant find a good solution to this, in fact I found people asking the same issue. The fact is Im making a game that after being published is 7Mb SWF, this was working great and in fact I havent made any critical change there, only updated a text field with a typo (no code), then when I tried to publish it crashed (other big games I made are making Flash crash too), and crashes the same when hitting CTRL+ENTER or just selecting File>>Publish or File>>Publish settings>>Publish, I reinstalled the whole CS4 6 or 7 times and even got a tool from here to uninstall the player (I thought it uninstalled the player used from IDE but its apparently the browser plugin) asuming the issue could be there but still keeps crashing after I re-install it, oddly small FLA files can be published, I looked into CS5 faqs and I have seen they can set the cache size there but I cant find in CS4, and Im unsure if is due to that but just my guess after all I read about this, could someone help me please? Thanks a lot beforehand, I have been fighting this for 4 days almost sleepless

Im only using as2 code in these projects I meantioned, and I have Windows Vista on this machine, just if this helps to solve it, again, thanks for any clue

Edit: Im unsure if this is the right section or not, please receive my apologies if its wrong place as maybe this is intended for only code doubts but I couldnt find the right section to ask it so please move it to the appropiate place when you can and Im sorry for the trouble

[kglad]

if everything works when using smaller swfs you may have just encountered a problem limitation in the amount of ram you have (or more likely the amount of your ram flash pro cs4 can use).

if so the only work-around is to break your game into several chunks that can be laded into a main chunk.

[roninpsp]

Thanks for posting about this, but the fact is these projects were working just 3 days ago and no media was added, no change was made, only corrected a text in one of them but the others remain so something changed in the configuration inside the IDE somewhere or the memory allowed to it or something like that

[kglad]

you can try resetting your preferences: hold down shfit-ctrl-alt while starting cs4.  you'll see a confirmation dialog if successfully done.

if resetting fails, uninstall, clean and reinstall per, Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6

[roninpsp]

Thanks Kglad, I couldnt access the dialog to reset the preferences so I went to the article you recommended, followed all steps but the cleaner tool claims that there is no data from any CS4 tool in the system, I have seen the log file generated and of course it says the same. Also After this failed I started browsing the register for any occurence of "CS4" string and found a couple, but I have not a good knowledge of register to know what could be deleted there and what not, then what else could I do? again thanks for anything this is really frustrating issue and Im lost.

[kglad]

i would not recommend editing the registry.

if you can upload your fla somewhere and post a link, i'll check it.

[roninpsp]

Yes I agree about touching the registry being riskful step.

About the FLA file its nothing special and isolated to it, I mean any relatively big game I have made before cant be published, in fact after testing many, I think I can only publish plain drawings apparently, so anything having code inside apparently crashes

[kglad]

if everything with code crashes flash pro, you have a corrupt installation or some other problem (like a java runtime issue) specific to your computer.

[roninpsp]

I uninstalled and reinstalled java and the issue remains but I cant asure java is correctly installed, I mean I only got that message from sun site "java is installed now", but who knows if maybe registry has a bigger inner issue in relation to java itself.

I tried other FLA files and noticed that if code is simple like as1 it works but anything object oriented crashes, I know how strange this could sound, just trying to see if more details can help find a solution

[kglad]

i see this, Bug: Flash CS5+CS4 Professional crashes when compiling AS2 classes.

but don't see how that's going to help you.

these aren't necessarily helpful either, but you could install your cs4 on another computer or try installing another flash pro version.

[roninpsp]

Well my case is a bit different, I mean I havent added any code to these projects, some of these were working perfect with exact same ammount of code and in same cs4, just at any point this week something happened here that made cs4 crash on every as2 project I try to publish

Also, I dont own cs5 but a friend of mine could come around here and try his cs5 after I uninstall cs4 again, if cs5 works fine would that prove anything or help fix the issue with cs4?

And as a side note, after uninstalling and reinstalling like a dozen of times I noticed that my preferences (layout mostly) are never discarded, even after I clearly tell to discard when uninstalling, is this related to the main issue? I mean like probably as said the reigstry is keeping some data about flash after uninstalling that keeps making it crash

[kglad]

roninpsp wrote:

Well my case is a bit different, I mean I havent added any code to these projects, some of these were working perfect with exact same ammount of code and in same cs4, just at any point this week something happened here that made cs4 crash on every as2 project I try to publish

that means little.

Also, I dont own cs5 but a friend of mine could come around here and try his cs5 after I uninstall cs4 again, if cs5 works fine would that prove anything or help fix the issue with cs4?

no

And as a side note, after uninstalling and reinstalling like a dozen of times I noticed that my preferences (layout mostly) are never discarded, even after I clearly tell to discard when uninstalling, is this related to the main issue?

no, that's expected and one reason you should reset your preferences.

[roninpsp]

I havent been able to try my friends cs5 here, but still I know that wont help fixing the issue, just want to be sur eif that makes cs5 crash too.

And about resetting preferences, I tried several times but the dialog you mentioned never arised, how is that triggered? I mean I press and hold CTRL+ALT+SHiFT the 3 at the same time when the Flash CS4 red banner appears I mean as its loading and I dont release until its fully loaded, is that the right time and procedure to reset preferences? because as said I never launched the dialog and my preferences are kept always and maybe as you said in first place that could fix this.

[kglad · Accepted solution]

Re-create preferences

[roninpsp]

Well my friend, you saved me here =), that final advice you gave was the solution, I followed the steps, deleted the registry keys and deleted the folders with the preferences, then I reinstalled over the damaged Flash Pro version and it worked again!!, I even managed to recover my workspace with the folder I saved before, dont know why I never got a dialog to reset preferences in the middle of this process as you mentioned and as is said in the article, but the important is that it worked, and finally the Flash Pro is able to publish the mentioned as2 projects, takes a bit of time to publish but it was never too fast with bigger projects.

I owe you one, I would like to include a link to your site in the game as a way to thank you for this, but if you feel its wrong or you prefer any other way to show how much I thank you for this please let me know

The link I would like to add can be seen here in the game tittle screen and "About" section

http://mordaza.eu5.org/School%20Memories.swf

[kglad]

that's great!

you can mark correct/helpful answers.  i would appreciate that.

[roninpsp]

Thank you really =), I marked the right one (as I cant mark more than one as correct answer), in fact all your replies were helpful in a way or another to see what could be happening here and isolating the trouble, just the final one was the one that fixed the issue.

Again and as said thanks a lot, I dont know if the game will be seen by many or not but as said I included the link to your site (if you dont mind that is) and I hope some people get to visit your page 😃

[kglad]

thank you very much for the link.

[roninpsp]

I thank you very much for saving me here, a link is not enough to show my gratitude but its what I can use at the moment, continue like that, thanks for your time and patience.

All the best for you and your people