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Flash CS4: Movie goes blank while testing

New Here ,
May 21, 2009 May 21, 2009

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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.

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New Here ,
May 21, 2009 May 21, 2009

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By the way, this happening to more than just me. Here's a thread over at Apple, detailing the same issue:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1945832&tstart=0

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Explorer ,
Jun 12, 2009 Jun 12, 2009

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Hi, I just noticed this post. (I'm the one who started the thread you linked to on the Apple forum.)

Have you had any luck with this issue? I've gone back and forth with Apple and Adobe support, and each one claims it's the other one's problem. But at this point I'm pretty sure it's an Adobe issue, since the rest of CS4 is so frustratingly unstable.

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Advocate ,
Jun 12, 2009 Jun 12, 2009

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Do you guys see this with particuar files in CS4, or is it an issue with every single file you test movie on?  If it is a particular set of files, can you share any of them so we can try to reproduce this internally?

Thanks,

Jen.

PS: regarding stability, make sure you have the 10.0.2 update installed and let us know about remaining issues and the files causing them so we can fix them.

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Explorer ,
Jun 15, 2009 Jun 15, 2009

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Hi Jen,

Thanks for your response. This doesn't happen to every FLA I work on, but it happens to most of them. I've tried to find a similarity between the files, but no luck. Some are fairly simple, some are complex. When I create a brand new FLA, it runs fine. And then after I work on it for a while, the disappearing bug usually appears. And from then on it's totally random. I could test the movie and leave it running for a few minutes with no problems, or it could start blanking out after a few seconds and keep doing it. There are some files that seem to blank out more consistently, and some that do it a little less often. I've submitted tickets to customer support, and they haven't been able to help.

I'm attaching a sample FLA. I picked this one because it's small and blanks out consistently. This is a little utility program that came with a book I bought about making games in Flash, which lets you create a tile-based game map. I'm also including a quicktime screen capture that shows the disappearing in action.

The disappearing only appears when I run Test Movie within the Flash authoring tool on my Mac Pro. When I open the SWF directly in Flash Player, it works fine. And Test Movie works fine on my other Macs. (Quad G5 and Intel iMac.)

Regarding stability, I do all of my work in Flash CS4 & Photoshop CS4. And lately I've easily been submitting 5-10 crash reports a day between the two programs. (They've each crashed once in the past hour.) They're both updated to the latest versions, and I've uninstalled/reinstalled both a few times. (including trashing preferences & configuration files, zapping PRAM, fixing permissions, etc.)

I don't know what else I can do. Besides submitting that crash report each time, is there another way I should let Adobe know about the issues?

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Advocate ,
Jun 16, 2009 Jun 16, 2009

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Hi there,

Thanks very much for the info, and the files. I'll file a bug and attach them so someone with a similar configuration to yours can try and reproduce the problem (my macs are very different configs, which is perhaps why I've never seen this one and cannot reproduce). That's the key, if we can reproduce internally then we can try to narrow down the cause and find a fix. Perhaps that has been the problem with the help in the past.  But your files will be a big help so we can get the closest possible set up and workflow to the one you're using, and hopefully repro the problem.

Regarding the crashes and stability, I can't say what is the cause as there are so many possibilities. Submitting the crash reports helps, but may not lead to a direct fix. Are you generally doing the same thing when you crash, or are they fairly random?  Are the files you're working on consuming a lot of your total memory?  The key to us fixing the bugs is having a set of reproducable steps, which sometimes requires files you are working on. If you can reproduce every time with steps, definitely file those steps on the bug form https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform (or if you have some steps now, let me know!).  If the crashes are random then it's difficult to narrow down, but if you notice anything consistent between them then submitting a bug on that page with those notes would be helpful.

Thanks again for your help!

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2009 Jul 03, 2009

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I've just seen this tread after googling on the problem.

I'd like to stick my hand up and say that it's happening to me as well in Flash CS4 exactly as described above.

I've tried to work out steps that cause it to happen, but it appears to be random. It does seem to happen more with some files than others, but can happen both with simple and complex files. It's by no means a rare thing for me as well. It's a huge problem which really ruins my experience of working with flash cs4. I'd assumed that as it was such a regular bug that would have been fixed in the last update and I was disappointed to find that it wasn't.

I'll happily supply any details of my setup / config you need... I just really want to see this bug get fixed as it's making my life a misery.

I'm running Flash CS4 10.0.2 on a Mac Pro:

  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: 10 GB

Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

(I also get a fair few crashes, although maybe one every couple of days.)

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Advocate ,
Jul 06, 2009 Jul 06, 2009

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Hi there,

Thank you very much for the details!  We have reproduced it internally with the files submitted earlier on 8-core Mac machines here (this appears to be the setup causing the problem with certain files, we haven't seen it on non 8-core Macs) - so that's good news, because it's a bad one and now that we can reproduce it we can start figuring out the cause of the problem.  I'm afraid though that I don't presently have a workaround as it's in the early stages of investigation, but if we do find one that will help in the interim I will post details here.

Thanks everyone for the details and files - they helped us reproduce the problem internally.

Jen.

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Explorer ,
Jul 06, 2009 Jul 06, 2009

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Wow, thank you. It's encouraging to finally hear acknowledgement from Adobe about this! Although it's also very frustrating since I first contacted support about it in the beginning of April, and after three months (with the ticket escalating through three levels of support) they hadn't acknowledged there was an issue with Flash, but kept suggesting that it was a problem with my graphics card.

Jen, you've been more helpful here than the official Customer Support Portal! Thanks again for your attention to this, and I eagerly await the solution...

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Explorer ,
Jul 06, 2009 Jul 06, 2009

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Nice one. Thanks for acknowledging the problem. I really look forward to being able to use CS4 without this issue. Please do contact me if I can test anything for you.

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Explorer ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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Hey Jen! Nice meeting you at Adobe MAX.

Anyway... has there been any update with this problem? Our company gave us these shiny, brand new Macs, and it's incredibly painful to use Flash CS4 on them. Among other odd bugs with CS4, this one is probably most annoying. Here are my computer's specs... I hope it helps! Thanks!

Model Name:    Mac Pro
Model Identifier:    MacPro4,1
Processor Name:    Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:    2.26 GHz
Number Of Processors:    2
Total Number Of Cores:    8
L2 Cache (per core):    256 KB
L3 Cache (per processor):    8 MB
Memory:    6 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed:    5.86 GT/s
Boot ROM Version:    MP41.0081.B03

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Explorer ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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I watched this video by Lee Brimelow the other day: http://theflashblog.com/?p=1275 in which he claims that there will be NO MORE UPDATES to Flash CS4 since the 10.0.2 update which did not fix this issue.

Come on Adobe... can we have an answer on this please?

It's a very bad bug affecting Mac Pro owners on hardware that was available long before CS4 came out.

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Guest
Jul 12, 2009 Jul 12, 2009

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I'm also seeing this bug on a quad core mac.  I realized that I'm only running 10.0 so I'll install the upgrade and let you know if I see it again after the upgrade.  My configuration is:

  Model Name:    Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:    MacPro1,1
  Processor Name:    Dual-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:    2.66 GHz
  Number Of Processors:    2
  Total Number Of Cores:    4
  L2 Cache (per processor):    4 MB
  Memory:    3 GB
  Bus Speed:    1.33 GHz

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Guest
Jul 14, 2009 Jul 14, 2009

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I'm still seeing this bug after the upgrade.  Possibly even more frequently with the upgrade!

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 04, 2009 Aug 04, 2009

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Just discovered this thread after experiencing similar issues. What is being done to resolve this? I luckily didn't use Flash CS4 regularly before, but when i started seeing this problem i always thought i was doing something wrong. Now things have got to the point where i need to use CS4 but can't!

My system is as follows:

Mac Pro 8-Core (early 2008)

16 GB 800 Mhz DDR2 FB_DIMM

ATI Radeon HD 4870

OS X 10.5.7

and i'm using the lastest 10.0.2 update of CS4.

cheers

Rob

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Explorer ,
Aug 04, 2009 Aug 04, 2009

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This is the most recent response I heard from Adobe support, last week...

Thank you for contacting Adobe® Web Support for assistance with Flash® Pro CS4.

I apologize for the delay in responding to your case. We have experienced a recent increase in volume for web cases being submitted. We have made corrections in staffing and expect to be caught up with our backlog of cases soon.

I understand that when you use the Test Movie feature in Flash, the screen randomly blanks out.

Thank you for your patience in dealing with this issue and for the additional information provided by the link to the forums. Because the 8-Core “Nehalem” processor was introduced after the release of the Adobe CS4 products, our products have not been certified to run on this architecture, so you may encounter issues for which there is no resolution at this time. Please check frequently for future updates.

If you require further assistance with this issue, please update your web case with complete details, including what steps you have applied and any error messages you are receiving.

You may also call Technical Support at (800) 642-3623. We are available from 6:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday - Friday, Pacific Time.

In other words: "tough luck."

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2009 Aug 05, 2009

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Well that's a bit of a cop-out as I'm getting the problem on a pre-Nehalem machine. Mine is Quad-Core Intel Xeon.

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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Well isn't that just fine & dandy!

I'm sorry Adobe but you can't have your cake and eat it. This has got nothing to do with the Nehelam technology - my symptoms which are identical to the ones described here in this thread are occuring on an old 2008 mac pro that has never had anything like a Nehalem near it. The email response below posted by stiv41 is talking complete crap, and is essentially a technical support brush-off.

Is anyone at all listening? Are these forums serving any useful purpose, or are they just a way of placating a user for the problems he/she experiences while continuing to claim you are listening to community feedback and value it's input. Adobe, your software is BROKEN. We have done the hard part of testing it on a platform that was clearly ignored before the release of CS4. If you are not going to take the responsibility of fixing it, at least have the good grace to offer those who bought your software in good faith the possibility of a refund on a release that is unusable on 8-core mac pros.

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Advocate ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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Hi there,

I can't speak for Lee or Tech Support, they're different teams, but I can say that on the Flash team the bug is open, is considered high priority, is being taken very seriously, but does not yet have a fix. We do have a number of 8 core machines internally on the team (that we test on), and whatever is determined to be causing this to happen in these files might help us know what to watch for in the future.

Jen.

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Explorer ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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Thanks Jen. After tech support sent me the message I included above, they marked my case as Resolved. I'm glad to hear that everybody at Adobe doesn't feel that way.

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Advocate ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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Hi everyone,

So in the files linked above (from stiv41), for me the lines causing the bug seem to be the two doing copyPixels. If I remove those two lines the content doesn't disappear for me anymore.

Can anyone confirm this is the case for them too?

Can anyone out there confirm this is not causing the issue for them? If there are other cases/files where you do not use copyPixels and see this bug, please let me know.

Thanks,

Jen.

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Explorer ,
Aug 13, 2009 Aug 13, 2009

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Possibly... I've been doing a lot of bitmap manipulation. Even distributing it to some of my coworkers... Who have the same set up and experience the same problems. I will look into it.

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Explorer ,
Aug 14, 2009 Aug 14, 2009

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Hi Jen,

Thanks for your reponses.

I haven't used copyPixels in any of my projects that show the bug. It doesn't seem to be tied to a particular piece of code or action for me. It happens to varying degrees in pretty much every project I work on.

I've emailed you a zip of one particular project in which the bug seems to happen an awful lot so I hope that helps.

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Explorer ,
Aug 14, 2009 Aug 14, 2009

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Do you use any third party components or actionscript? A lot of effects rely on manipulating BitmapData.

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Explorer ,
Aug 14, 2009 Aug 14, 2009

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Yeah I use TweenMax, (sometimes Fuse in older projects) so it could well be something to do with that... but a quick search on the TweenMax source files doesn't show up any use of copyPixels.

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