Gray circle with white exclamation mark on white background

[jdw9113]

We have a digital signage app that uses the flash player OCX as a COM component within a .NET application running on XP and Win 7.   Since upgrading some clients to flash version 10.1.53.64 we are experiencing a variety of issues to include:

1) fscommand calls that are being raised from the SWFs being played eventually stop being raised to (or at least received by) the application.  The behavior is not consistant, and it usually takes a while for this to occur.  Only an app restart seems to restore functionality.

2) Also occasionally insted of the SWF that is supposed to be playing, a white screen is displayed in the flash window.   The screen has a small gray circle with a white exclamation mark in the center.  When this occurs it never recovers - even when a new SWF is loaded.  No errors are raised and the app "thinks" that everything is still going smoothly.  Again a app restart is required to fix it.

We can usually recover from missing fscommands because if we expect a command that never comes, we can restart gracefully.  Issue 2 is more problematic in that its only a visual thing - no errors or other bad behavior seem to be occuring.

Any thoughts of fixes or work arounds would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[KiraRG]

Expalin in dumb dumb terms please. So many big words and steps that I don't understand.

[Bonyak]

In simple terms flashplayer has a leak like turning the water on or off and it still keeps going except this is a memory leak. After many hours of play or use the bathtub gets full and the water has to go some place. Only there is no place for the memory to go because it is full up. So you get the circle with ! point saying it is full up. unlike water you can reset the memory by closing your browser, restarting the game or what other wise is causing the memory to fillup. It is like draining the bathtub and starting again. there are several solutions posted in this thread to get it to work again. I have not had the problem for along time but it keeps coming up for other people. Update to the latest flashplayer version for your system. One thing I noticed is you must install flashplayer for each browser you are using. So update while using IE and once again for Firefox or other browsers. The latest version does not update except for using the browser that applies to the install. So use the specific browser to update flashplayer.

[KiraRG]

The circle that I get with the ! doesn't say that its filled up,and I have the lastest flash for my browsers. I've restarted the game,browsers,and my computer and I still get that circle.

[Guest]

Then when is it occurs?

And we all should notice the note of Chris Campbell's - that this topic was opened for one bug - a bug in a digital signage app that uses the flash player OCX as a COM component within a .NET application.

"Our bug" - After playing some Flash videos (it's not obvious how many since it's random) we're getting the GCOD and Flash Player is crashing.

That one bug for which this topic was created has the same results as out bug - the Grey Circle of Death (GCOD) - a white exclamation mark in a grey circle on a white background.

It is reported in Adobe's bugbase at: https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=2928203

Chris Campbell noted us that we should open a new discussion and a new bug report.

I'm intending to do so very soon.

I'll post here a link for it too, so this discussion won't die.

[Bonyak]

That is the nature of the the circle with explination point it is the indicator saying memory of flashplayer has exceeded its limits. When you get the gray circle of death that is flashplayer saying I am full. need4steer has addressed the matter but it is in tech this is actually a new problem with a memory leak so I have been wating for a new thread to the new discission.

[ZombiePigMen]

This happens to me client side on Chrome all the time when I am in a flash-based browser game. Same with Youtube. Other then just restarting the computer, are there are other fixes?

[Bonyak]

Yes look back up the thread this is acutally the new memory leak issue some members have been addressing this is a new bug on an old issue of memory leaks the original was another memory leak again we are waiting to be notified of the new thread on this issue.

[Guest]

@Bonyak: I'll make an effort and will try to open a new thread with the details about this problem and how to restore it so Adobe hopefully will be able to verify it and to solve it.

@ZombiePigMen: There are indeed some methods to bypass the GCOD. As Bonyak suggested there are details in the previous page.

For your convenience, the link is:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4500900#4500900

[APortales]

Did you have any update about this issue?

I'm running WPF application for many Kiosks  that use the OCX control to show animations ads, after a certain repetitions of animations, the gray circle appear.

Please, let me know if you currently have a flash player fix to solve it.

Best Regards.

[chris.campbell]

@Aportales - I think the best approach would be to go ahead and add a new bug specific to your out of memory situation.  Could you please open a new bug report on this over at bugbase.adobe.com?  When adding the bug, please include sample code and your swf (or url to hosted content) so we can quickly test this out internally.  If you'd like to keep this private, feel free to email the attachment to me directly (ccampbel@adobe.com). 

Once added, please post back and I can ask someone to test this out.

Thanks,

Chris

[home_aidan]

Hi Chris,

I develop a touch screen interfaces using flash. The flash sits with in VB7, VB7 I belive uses the internet explorer 8 plugin to display the flash.

The GCOD has been a constant issue for us. I have been fighting it off for 4 years now by nulling vars, removing ref to classes removing event listeners and so on. So things have been ok.

But this last week Ive been seing the GCOD and not being able to figure out why its occuing as the memory useage looks fine.

I have a few questions...

System.freeMemory +  System.totalMemory... This is the total memory given to flash to run the program with? freememory being whats left for flash to use? and totalmemory being the amount thats actually in use by the flash program?

Can the amount of total memory available to flash flucturate? i.e can a system take memory that was originally given to flash and use it some where else for example if microsoft word was opened could a system rob memory from flash's allocation to help support Microsoft word? I would assume this give flash less memory to play with and make the chances of GCOD occuring more likely?

Ive read various reports that their is maximum amount of memory that a browser will allocated to flash? Is that correct? So how come if that max is say... 300mb I can create a memory leak and watch my commited charge in task manager sow up way above 300mb before I eventually get the GCOD?

If/WHEN we take flash out of vb7 and publish as a AIR project will this make life easier for me regarding memory?

Thanks very

Aidan

[toughacrobats12]

Chris,

I am still experiencing this issue. I am running Flash Player 11.8, Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, Internet Explorer 9. Any resolution to this grey circle of death? Thanks.

[jesica83]

Hey  all  i just  got one of my friends who is a software developer after several weeks of me having this same issue   we have came across the fact that  this is infact a ADOBE  issue but not with Flash player   you may all need to install a  the new shockwave Player  from here * http://get.adobe.com/shockwave/  *  that  solved the problem for me now i can play  my Farmville and watch Youtube vids and  do loads of things that  this issue wouldnt let me  or it would just load and than get that grey annoying circle !!!!

its worth a shot  

i had tried everything in the book  i was as close as formatting my hdd and  re installing windows  but thnk goodness  my friend mentioned to try shockwave  which was the ONLY  one  thing i haven't tried  and whaaaaaalaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa it worked!!!!!!! good luck all

[Bonyak]

ok I will do that with shockwave because I had installed it prior to flash pl;ayer going crazy because I listen to internet music while playing games. So if this fixes the problem, I  will post this info after I test it.

[hadixavier1232]

how about today guys,do you hv solution for this issue?im newbie here...

[Bonyak]

It has been several different causes update to the latest version and install the most current java before you continue troubleshooting. This issue has not been addressed for several months, most of us assume it has been corrected with the latest versions. Check your cashe on Java and your browser. You need to post your browser version and what other versions of flash player and Java your using for us to give you any other suggestions.

[hadixavier1232]

chrome 19.0.1084.15 beta-m

java  Version 6 Update 31

flash version 11,2,202,229

[Bonyak]

Ok let one of the others answer I use FireFox and IE it is better if one of the others help u trouble shoot it..  I will give u somethings to look at go to java console and clear cache. When you close the browser make sure it clears the cache or manually clear the cache. If it occurs only after long game play, this is a memory leak. The time varies somewhat but it is at least over 1hr. it usually occurs for me after about 3hrs of game play.

[hadixavier1232]

ive no idea,but still get gray mark when simultaneously open 48 youtube tabs...any options?

[Guest]

hadixavier1232 wrote:

ive no idea,but still get gray mark when simultaneously open 48 youtube tabs...any options?

If you've got 48 tabs open, then it's hardly surprising that you're experiencing a problem. Here's an explanation of what's happening.

[Bonyak]

Yeah little details like 48 TABS Open are not to be left out when you advise us. LOL.

[hadixavier1232]

thanks

[Guest]

hadixavier1232 wrote:

chrome 19.0.1084.15 beta-m

java  Version 6 Update 31

flash version 11,2,202,229

Strictly speaking, you should be posting this problem on the Google forums, not here because the Flash player in Chrome is intergrated and updates itself silently in the background. Google will be more likely to know what the cause of the problem might be. The Adobe forums on the other hand only deal with Flash player as a plugin.

[john-player-one]

Hi, we got it today. This is a Captivate published Flash eLearning module with mp4 videos. This appeared as a video was trying to load towards the end of about 15 minutes of previous video files loading.