Flash CS4: Movie goes blank while testing

[jacdx5050]

While testing the movie within Flash, the Test Movie window randomly goes blank, showing the stage color. The movie is still running, there's no error, it's just blank. When I resize the Test Movie window, everything reappears... Until a few seconds later, when it snaps back to blank... so I resize, it reappears, it disappears, I resize, it reappears, it disappears... over and over. Resizing even just one pixel is enough to get it to come back. Sometimes it happens every few seconds. It's enough to drive a person nuts.

This might be related to another issue: If I Test Movie with the Bandwidth Profiler on, Flash CS4 doesn't resize the window correctly to fit my entire movie in it, resulting in a big blank space underneath the Bandwidth Profiler, and that same amount of space being cutoff the bottom of my movie. I haven't seen anything like this in 10yrs of Flash development.

This is a Mac Pro, 8-core. The graphics card is ATI Radeon HD XT 2600. 6GB RAM. 10.5.3-10.5.7

The same FLA works without any issues on CS4/XP. The FLA saved to CS3 works without any issues on CS3/OSX and CS3/XP (same machine).

I have all but given up on CS4 for OSX. Between the crappy framerates, the crashing, and not being able to TEST MOVIE, I just avoid CS4 on OSX and use CS3 on OSX or CS4 on XP.

[gabadilla]

Just wanted to chime in and say thanks for the fix.

[pyrografix]

Yes thank you so much!

This new fix has helped productivity immensly... can't thank you enough!

[pyrografix]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

We Love you JEN!

[pyrografix]

ITS BACK!

The new update for 10.6.5 reintroduced the "blanking" bug!

This sucks!

[Guest]

Hey guys,

Crap! Not good news.

I am checking out the files again with the Mac update, and I'm not seeing the blanking bug on those files we used for testing the bug/fix.

Could any of you attach or send files where you see this happening so I can reproduce and investigate?

Thanks,

Jen.

[VanBcGunner]

I am having the same issue on Windows 7. Recenlty it started happening. I press CTRL+ENTER, I just see blank. No debug, no errors, nothing. just blank.

If I continue to press CTRL+ENTER multiple times, tho, it shows. that is after publishing like 3 or 4 times.

I am baffled. Adobe is really lazy here.

[Guest]

I rather disagree strongly about the laziness, and would hope name-calling to be unnecessary in general. Many engineers and managers worked terrifically hard on the hotfix released solely for the original issue, and I would love to be able to reproduce this issue (as stated earlier). This thread should also support that. Also as stated earlier, I cannot reproduce and would need files in order to speed up the process of narrowing down the issue which does seem to be a similar outcome but doesn't seem caused by the same thing (it was also specific to Mac, not Windows).

[oldschoolmx]

The truth may be uncomfortable and stark: but it's the truth. As someone who always update$ and owns the full Master Collection I have a right to my opinion.

Adobe is lazy. The issue is either laziness or a culture of mediocrity and incompetence. I don't know which is worse.

VanBcGunner is spot on. And it's not just this bug...there are pervasive and inexcusable bugs that have been left unresolved in Photoshop, Flash, and other flagship apps.

My current version of Photoshop is the most unpredictable version of Photoshop I've ever seen.  I see more erratic, buggy behavior with my Adobe apps than any on my hard drive--and I have some very sophisticated 3d apps that I use.

Obviously Adobe makes some great tools, but in the past five years there has been some serious slippage that lots of people have noticed.

It's not just the software...I've seen the most ridiculous product fulfillment and customer service issues on three or four occasions.

We want to love you guys, Adobe. But you are increasingly making it difficult.

[pyrografix]

Do you enter the bugs you find? If you are so concerned with the quality of the applications being produced you should join the beta testing instead of complaining about it. You can complain all you want, but if you don't submit a ticket for the bugs you encounter, how do you expect the engineers to know they exist? The bug this post is referring to actually only happens on the Mac... leading me to believe that a problem you are experiencing on the PC is either a problem with your code or a new problem entirely.

Furthermore, how can you call Adobe lazy? They are addressing problems with software released over 2 years ago on an update of an OS that didn't exist when they built the application. Even when they have new software they are selling. They fixed this bug within a couple weeks of being notified of the problem. Obviously APPLE DOESN'T PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS... otherwise they would have let them know they are going to have this update for the Mac.

If your client discovered a bug with a website you built 2 years ago...(before google chrome) and they found that it didn't work on the new browser or updates to firefox... How much would you charge them? Would you fix it for free? How fast would you turn it around? Either way, I think it's nice that Adobe is even responding to bugs that appear in old software. They could have told you to go out and buy the new version.

Besides the Adobe engineers are extremely approachable. You can ask them any question you wish, or provide ideas for improvements to their software... They listen! Jen DeHaan here, is very good about answering her emails and even takes the time to check your source files for errors. She needs your source files to diagnose the cause of these problems. Otherwise it's like asking your doctor to figure out what that rash on your junk is over the phone.

[oldschoolmx]

pyrografix,  Yes I have reported the bugs I find...in some cases offering context of crashes, etc. In some cases I've done so repeatedly.

There have been several bugs that haven't been resolved for months...one that wasn't resolved for years. (the crash on quit bug)

I own cs5 Master Suite on the Mac. I haven't encountered the bug yet on v5, but I was plagued by it endlessly in v4. I am currently plagued by bugs in Photoshop CS5 that aren't minor.

I wrote to validate my agreement with VanBCGunner.

[pyrografix]

I don't work for Adobe... but Jen does. It seems like every engineer I have spoke with is incredibly willing to help you out.

I am sorry I got mad... I just don't like it when people start slamming other developers work without knowing their circumstances. We have no idea what challenges they are presented with. I can't imagine that kind of pressure! All the new OSs and updates and new versions of browsers. It's got to be a friggin nightmare.

The CS4 bug was fixed with Flash 10.0.2 update last year. It seems like CS5 also fixed some things in Flash (Which is great!) But it has created new bugs in Photoshop... You really need to reach out to the Photoshop engineers and keep on them with those bugs... they get oodles of issues every day in the forums. You need to be very vocal to raise above the crowd.

They have different teams that work on each product. The engineers on this forum are likely Flash Platform Engineers only.

As for your PC Flash problem... keep presenting that bug! It may be a new issue that Adobe has never seen. Others will thank you for it.

Be sure to provide your source files to Jen. She (or other people on the forum) can test out your bug for you and reproduce it. If its reproducible, they might know how to fix it.

[ssacks]

Arguing online is so lame. Here's the bottom line.

I have been told by Adobe management that Adobe cannot legally charge its customers to fix bugs in their software. Unless the bug fixes are bundled in with new features, they can't make money from them.

So, regardless of the fact that many of Adobe's customers would pay for a major bug fix release that fixes the majority of long standing bugs without adding new features, Adobe cannot legally charge for it.

Can this conversation get back on topic now?

I haven't seen this bug on Windows since the hotfix for Flash CS4 awhile back. It is entirely possible that it still exists on the Mac, but I don't develop with the Flash IDE on the Mac, so I don't know.

[VanBcGunner]

Ok. lazyness part, may be I was too harsh.

But guys, these products we buy from you area really, really expensive. And as such, when we pay such a price, we expect, you know, quality. I was really frustrated at the moment, and I typed whatever I could type in my head. For that I am sorry.

But the reason for my frustration wasn't just because of this bug, which continues to frustrate me, in every way, but also, my CS4 has become unusable, so, I will go ahead and buy CS5. It's been a while anyway. However, there are twho things that have bugged me recently:

1. This going blank bug. I am on Windows, so, the fix that you provided above didn't help me. (Solved, I will purchase CS5)

2. Now, that i got your attention, I would like to tell you about another issue... When I click Context help, for example, I click on a keyword "ContextMenu" and press F1, I get taken to this page:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/index.html

instead of being taken to the correct help page for that particular property. (Worked before, till recently) This is a change that was introduced recently, I don't have an idea why.

On that page, I keep clicking on one of the options, I keep redirected to the same page. Try it out yourself and let me know if you get different results.

Oh, And I hate the new frameset as well...