Flash CS5 crashing when saving

I have found the solution to fix my file

In my case, I had to remove from the XML descriptor of a movieclip a reference to an FLVPlayback component! (don't ask me why)

I am pasting the XML node I had to remove on the bottom, first the step by step solution in case others may stumble on this.

It seems that movieclips get corrupt somehow, so, in order to find which ones, we have to proceed this way:

solution

1 - if you save your file as CS5 FLA, then rename the corrupt file from xxx.fla to xxx.zip.

2 - Unzip the file, and you are going to have the same directory structure as if you save in xfl. Now, if you open the xfl file inside the unzipped folder, you get the same error you get opening the fla.

3 - Go into the LIBRARY folder. This is a hyerarchical representation of your library.

4 - If like I do, your library is well organized in folders and subfolders, this step will not be too annoying. If you have all library items free in the library, then it could be boring. Anyway... The thing here is to find which library items are causing the problem, so you have to remove them one by one, or in groups, and try to launch the xfl each time. When the xfl gets opened, you have removed the right library item.

In my case, even for very large projects, I have only 4 folders in library's root. So what I did, I tried removing one of them, till I found the rightt one. Then I went deeper and deeper, and eventually found the **** movieclip causing the crash.

If its not an important item, you can just happily continue to work and do it again. In my case, it was a vital component, so I went inside the xml definition, and tried to remove nodes untill it finally opened.

TAHDAH

The file got opened again, just with a missing reference inside that movieclip.

I have read that often an empty frame may cause the problem, so you should look for <element/> tag.

In my case, was a FLVPlayback component.

Find below the node I had to remove (someone from Adobe may give a look)

It is advised untill Flash CS5 doesn't get stabilized on file save  (yeah, I know, a detail!) to store your projects as xfl and not as FLA  files. (I don't really know why, since a fla file is just a zipped xfl  folder renamed as .fla)

Exhausted but happy.

Filippo

                <DOMCompiledClipInstance libraryItemName="FLVPlayback" name="_video" selected="true" uniqueID="8">
                  <matrix>
                    <Matrix a="2.45603942871094" d="2.04177856445313"/>
                  </matrix>
                  <transformationPoint>
                    <Point x="160" y="119.95"/>
                  </transformationPoint>
                  <dataBindingXML><![CDATA[<component metaDataFetched='true' schemaUrl='' schemaOperation='' sceneRootLabel='HighlightItem' oldCopiedComponentPath=''>
</component>
]]></dataBindingXML>
                  <parametersAsXML><![CDATA[   <property id="align">
      <Inspectable name="align" variable="align" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="center" enumeration="center,top,left,bottom,right,topLeft,topRight,bottomLeft,bottomRight" type="List"/>
   </property>
   <property id="autoPlay">
      <Inspectable name="autoPlay" variable="autoPlay" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="false" type="Boolean"/>
   </property>
   <property id="cuePoints">
      <Inspectable name="cuePoints" variable="cuePoints" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="" type="Video Cue Points"/>
   </property>
   <property id="isLive">
      <Inspectable name="isLive" variable="isLive" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="false" type="Boolean"/>
   </property>
   <property id="preview">
      <Inspectable name="preview" variable="preview" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="None" type="Video Preview"/>
   </property>
   <property id="scaleMode">
      <Inspectable name="scaleMode" variable="scaleMode" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="exactFit" enumeration="maintainAspectRatio,noScale,exactFit" type="List"/>
   </property>
   <property id="skin">
      <Inspectable name="skin" variable="skin" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="" type="Video Skin"/>
   </property>
   <property id="skinAutoHide">
      <Inspectable name="skinAutoHide" variable="skinAutoHide" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="false" type="Boolean"/>
   </property>
   <property id="skinBackgroundAlpha">
      <Inspectable name="skinBackgroundAlpha" variable="skinBackgroundAlpha" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="0.85" type="Number"/>
   </property>
   <property id="skinBackgroundColor">
      <Inspectable name="skinBackgroundColor" variable="skinBackgroundColor" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="#666666" type="Color"/>
   </property>
   <property id="source">
      <Inspectable name="source" variable="source" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="" type="Video Content Path"/>
   </property>
   <property id="volume">
      <Inspectable name="volume" variable="volume" category="" verbose="0" defaultValue="1.00" type="Number"/>
   </property>
]]></parametersAsXML>
                </DOMCompiledClipInstance>

I agree with you, xfl from now on.

Problem is: as you said earlier on this post.... just like many other people, I got to this post AFTER file was corrupt

I think I have found a solution to recover corrupt files, at least whats left of them...

I am investigating further and then will post it.

F

I just experienced this problem with a BRAND NEW CS5 AS3 file.

- It has NOTHING to do with conversion from CS4 to CS5,

- there were no corrupt assets in my library (I am a library cleanup maniac).

- I have lost hours of work.

- The movie used to compile properly, and everything worked fine.

- Just after last save, the file was corrupt.

ADOBE should give us an anwer ASAP (not pointing to corrupt assets in library, which in my case do not exist).

Besides, if I have corrupt assets in my library I expect a several hundreds $ package to WARN ME, and not to corrupt my work!

I am a full time Flash developer, and this is SABOTAGE.

Adobe?

thanks

Filippo

Another one bites the dust here..

Opened Cs4 file, 4 hours later and various saves in between, tried to save once again and poof!!

(Unlike some of the other posts, I read, I was actually able to save twice before my final destination.)

Entire machine blanks out, had to force a hard reset, file is corrupted.

Thank you Adobe, for being huge pieces of shit and not properly testing your products, before seeding them into the market.

I truly hope your QC department or jackass exec that made the call not to Beta test, is left browsing the unemployment section.

As much as I love Flash, I'm starting to side with Steve Job's on this one.

Last upgrade I ever purchase.

Not sure how practical of a solution this is for you, but it helped me solve the corruption problem with the affected assets (assuming they're images) and allowed me to finally save the fla in CS5 format.

So, we can tell which assets are corrupted when you select them in the library and it says 'Preview Not Available'. (Yeah, it wold be nice to detect these somehow using jsfl or something.) Anyways, if you have Photoshop, you can right click on that image and select 'Edit with Photoshop'. Apparently, just doing that alone will 'remove' the corruption of that asset. It's not even necessary to save the image in Photoshop. Once I found the 2-3 files that had this problem, I was able to save to CS5 format with everything else intact.

My images were blank and didn't have a use count, so it wasn't a big loss for me to even just delete them. However, if it's just a couple of files, then it's probably less painful to replace those than to muck with an unusable fla file. Hope this helps someone.

-Byrt

I have an fla which was created in flash 8, worked on and saved in cs4. But if opened and saved in CS5 (fla or uncompressed) then opened again in CS5, the IDE just crashes (every time). If you save it as CS4 then it opens ok. But its a pain to down save it as CS4 - adobe should atleast make this easy and quick!

Finally some people that are going through this.  I am experiencing these same save crashes and a very similar yet far more destructive and painful defect when exporting to swf.  I am now only a few days away from losing my biggest and most important client to date because of this!!  At least my export crash is throwing an exception error...Has this helped Adobe email me back or work with me over the phone..not even close.

Every time I export the movie it reaches 100% and it just sticks there until the following exception error appears:

"Exception thrown in destructor

(f:\dd\vctools\vc7libs\ship\atlmfc\src\mfc\winfrm.cpp:142)

Encountered an improper argument."

When this happens I end up with a 1KB swf file.  Unfortunately, every time this dreading export failure happens I have to go back to a previous FLA for the project...The real kicker...Even if a previous FLA was always exporting just fine it will all of a sudden fail to export, even without making a single change to the FLA.  If it fails to export ONE TIME this FLA file is forever useless.  This problem has left me going back weeks, rebuilding and then boom, export freezes, you loose, do not collect $20,000.  I am completely at a loss here and never once, in my entire career, have I felt so helpless.  Your tech support is a joke and if I cant finish this project by the end of the week the entire contract gets ripped up.

Sorry everyone here for writing so much on a similar but different nightmare but I am doing everything I can to make my troubles and apparently those of many, known to Adobe.  So far I have only fallen more and more behind.  These are files created from scratch in CS5!  This is insane to me!!  I have been awake since Sunday trying to save this project and everything that was going to come of it.  I should not be awake/alive right now.

Any updates on a fix for this VERY unstable version?

It seems trying to load an external .swf file crashes my application.

Any news? Better off using CS4...

Too painful.

I've been managing along with the "missing armature" glitches that show up from time to time and even the tween oddities in CS5.  But alas this morning i went to open my project (that I've been working on for weeks) and got the "Unexpected file format." error on opening.  I checked the directory and sure enough my file was 1kb.  I didn't even recall Flash crashing on save yesterday.  But apparently CS5 chewed up my file.

For the record this was a new CS5 AS3 file on Windows Vista 64bit.

Ouch.  It just hurts.

Same problem or similar. Bigger problem is I cannot load the FLA anymore, even though it doesn't look corrupt - I think it's still the same size it was before. Is there someone I could send the file to for possibly having it fixed?

--

Toni Lehtinen

toni.lehtinen /AT sstmainos.fi