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.

[pyrografix]

I use TweenMax too. Hmm.

[stiv41]

I'm glad to see the burst of debugging! Let's keep it up...

Unfortunately, I'm going to throw a wrench into most of these theories. I went back through my files to find the simplest culprit I could. This file uses no BitmapData, no tweenmax, no external libraries. It calls in an external XML file, displays it in a scrolling text field, and uses the AS2 FLVPlayback component to show an FLV. I stripped out any extraneous functionality and it still blanks out.

Example video and FLA attached here...

[jendehaan]

Hi stiv41,

Hmm, your ZIP still seems stuck on the server (Queued). Do you mind trying again, or emailing it to jdh (at) adobe?  I'd love to check it out, becuase it sounds like a different case altogether...

Thanks,

Jen.

[jendehaan]

Hey eyegas,

Thanks for sending the ZIP!  It seems like it might have to do with the Fuse/alphaTo in the file. Does that seem consistent with your machine and other projects? 

[Antifuzz]

Hi Jen,

Well I guess it could be something to do with Fuse. In all my recent AS3 projects though, I no longer use Fuse and still get the bug, but I do use TweenMax in pretty much every project now so perhaps that also causes it.

I'm unconvinced that that's the cause though because it's such an intermittent bug and not one that caused reliably by following the same steps every time.

[pyrografix]

Could it be happening when there are large areas of the screen refreshing/invalidating?

[jendehaan]

Hey all,

With the latest files above, it seems to be related to the "frame" PNGs dropshadow. I reduced the file to a simple selectable dynamic text field (no scrollbar, just tF.text="stuff", multiline selectable), and the frame with the dropshadow applied, that's all.  When you select the text field downwards (so it scrolls), you will eventually encounter the bug. If I disable the dropshadow, I can no longer repro in the file.

So far the similarity between these files is still pretty vague, despite this new file being reduced to two basic elements. All three seem to have some relationship to bitmaps and filters/alpha and seen when the stage changes. In this latest file, it seems as though the transparency in the PNG may be an issue (I'm not reproducing using new PNGs without transparency, but I just did with a second transparent PNG).

Do all of you have transparent bitmaps involved?  Even though I don't remember the copyPixels file using the alpha parameters, maybe it's still affected...

[jendehaan]

Update - I can reproduce just with a transparent PNG that's animated with a filter applied. It seems like higher quality and/or larger bitmaps makes this happen quicker, which could explain the inconsistency.

[pyrografix]

I have an update on some of the symptoms.

1. If you dont immediately close it after it goes blank, any interactive objects or input fields are still active. Almost as if the stage's alpha was turned to 0.
2. When you resize the stage it comes back!
3. If you simulate downwload it comes back too.

As far as PNGs are concerned... aren't they just of the class Bitmap anyway? The filters are bitmaps too. I am sure there is a ton of BitmapData flying around in most SWFs.

Either way, I usually notice it occur when a lot of motion is going on at the same time.

[pyrografix]

I have been reading some other forums about this... One guy was mentioning that he called Apple support. They think it has something to do with Norton Anti-Virus and the Mac.

http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/index.php/topic,1222.msg6854.html#msg6854

We are using Norton here at work. How many of you out there have Norton installed in running?

[Antifuzz]

Haha... it was me that started that thread!

I don't use Norton and never have so it can't be right.

[stiv41]

No Norton here either.

In the beginning (before Jen confirmed that it was an issue with Flash) I spent a lot of time on the phone with Apple support. They gave me a program to run that captured all of the information while I experienced the issue, and they couldn't find anything wrong on the hardware/OS end.

[Antifuzz]

I just want to see this bug fixed in the current version.

[stiv41]

heh yeah, I agree.

[rob_bateman]

Hey Jen

thanx for keeping us updated on the bug progress, I am extremely glad to hear that efforts are being made. As a reference, it would be good to get a link to the bug report in the tracker so that those interested can follow it's pogress independently. I can't seem to locate the submission on Jira myself.

cheers

Rob

[jendehaan]

Hey Rob,

Our Flash authoring bugbase is presently on a different (non-Jira) system, so there unfortunately isn't an external link.

I wanted to add, if anyone has files they'd like me to test potential fixes with (to make sure all the bases are covered), please feel free to send them to jdh (at) adobe or attach them to this thread. If you send them to my email, please change the extension to something like .XYZ so the attachment isn't caught by our firewall.

Thanks!

Jen.

[Kurrykid-jzpfVq]

Can anyone confirm if the are using the Local Shared Object in their fla file when this occurs.  I've been having a similar problem (on a Vista machine).  I wouldn't describe it exactly are most in this thread but yet it seems to be related.  I have some type of issue going on where when I use the Local Shared Object to store a value, and then insert an image, it causes my movie to freeze and go blank while testing.  Not exaclty like the example video that was posted.  More like it may show a few words from the screen it freezes on.  Also, depending on where I insert the image, it will randowly choose a different part of the movie to freeze.

Maybe completely different but the only way I can keep developing and inserting an image is to comment out my code for the Local Shared Object.

Dave

[johnd59898678]

I have been fight with this exact same issue for several weeks, but just saw this post.

  Model Name: Mac Pro

  Model Identifier: MacPro3,1

  Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon

  Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz

  Number Of Processors: 2

  Total Number Of Cores: 8

  L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB

  Memory: 16 GB

  Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

  Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05

  SMC Version (system): 1.25f4

ATI Radeon HD 2600:

  Name: ATY,Lamna

  Type: display

  Driver Installed: Yes

  Bus: PCI

  Slot: Slot-1

  Vendor ID: 0x1002

  Device ID: 0x9588

  Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x106b

  Subsystem ID: 0x00a6

  Revision ID: 0x0000

  Link Width: x16

  Link Speed: 5.0 GT/s

ATI Radeon HD 2600:

  Name: ATY,Lamna

  Type: display

  Driver Installed: Yes

  Bus: PCI

  Slot: Slot-2

  Vendor ID: 0x1002

  Device ID: 0x9588

  Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x106b

  Subsystem ID: 0x00a6

  Revision ID: 0x0000

  Link Width: x16

  Link Speed: 5.0 GT/s

Running Flash CS4 v10.0.2 as part of Design Premium Suite

So far I have only seen this problem with certain AS2 Flash Sites I have built. All my sites contain transparent PNGs. This is very erratic. When testing the same FLA the black background will fill the stage at different points in the timeline. About every 5th test, it will run all the way through without a problem? Very strange.

[Antifuzz]

Is there any update on a fix for this bug?

I've just started a new project which makes heavy use of TweenMax (http://blog.greensock.com/tweenmaxas3/), and this bug is occurring about every other time I test the project. It's driving me scatty!

[ssacks]

Now wait a minute everyone. Before you get your panties in an even tighter bunch than they already are you should know something.

This bug happens on Windows XP, too.  It's not in any way isolated to Mac.

This is a CS4 bug.  It's intermittent, there's no rhyme or reason, and it happens to brand new files the first time they're Test Movied, and older files when they're Test Movied.

It does tend to happen more on Mac than Windows, but it definitely happens on Windows, too.

It happened more on Windows before the 10.0.2 update, but it still happens from time to time.

[ssacks]

The Norton excuse is a red herring, passing of the buck, or an outright lie, depending on your mood.

I've never installed Norton on any machine and this bug happened all the time on Windows prior to 10.0.2, and still happens occasionally.

Norton has nothing to do with this.

[pyrografix]

Well that makes me feel better.

[ssacks]

One thing we thought it might be was masking the entire stage before a single frame had passed.  So, if we waited one frame before masking the stage, it seemed to stop the issue.  But, after the 10.0.2 update, the issue returned even with this code change.

This might lead one to believe it has something to do with certain code running in constructors in the first frame.  However, the 10.0.2 update disproved this notion, though it might be part of the issue in some weird way.

Regardless, this only happens in the IDE, it does not happen in the browser or in an executable or in AIR.

[pyrografix]

I tend not to use masks because of their innefficiency. But you never know! I hope they fix it soon.

Hey Jen... when is Adobe planning to release the next update? We so desperately need a fix for this and many other odd bugs in Flash CS4. We love Flash soooo much.

But the other day I was so mad at CS4, I disfigured my Flash Monkey... I was even ready to go buy into Silverlight!

SILVERLIGHT!  ADOBE HELP US!

[Guest]

I'm running a PC using Flash CS4.  I have the masters suite loaded as well as Flex 3.

I started getting this issue when I started programming to an FMS server and added flvPlayback 2.5. 

I have a very simple construction, the flvPlayback 2.5 component and use AS 3.0 to attach the video.skin and video.source. 

I test the video.  I get a white box, then Flash crashes hard.  Then the bug report.  "Excellent Smithers."

Will be reinstalling CS4 hopefully today to get me back up and running.

Nasty bug, I hope Adobe is reading this error page.