SWF Compilation Failed

[Guest]

I am using Captivate 5 on a Windows Vista machine. I upgraded from Captivate 4 a week ago and successfully published one project in Captivate 5 before this one. I have compiled the current project a dozen times without a problem. But, when I added the project information and then tried to publish the project, I got the following error: "Swf compilation failed. Note: Please verify if any of the actionscript keywords is used as user variable name." [sic] I am not using variables in this project, so this error does not make any sense to me.

I am able to preview each slide individually. However, I get the above error message when I attempt to preview the whole project. I tried copying the slides, audio, and captions to a new blank project and got the same error when I attempted to publish it. I also attempted to remove all the project information and publish to project with no success.

Any ideas why this may be happening and what I can do about it -- short of starting the project over from scratch?

Thank you.

Isaac

[webtrainer_CA]

Sorry that I don't have an answer...I just wanted to ping this discussion to keep this question active and hopefully we'll get an answer

soon!

I'm on Windows 7 and have the whole eLearning Suite v2 installed.  I have tried some different things; from blank template adding a few buttons, doing a capture simulation, and importing PowerPoint slides.  All of which have the same error, as shown below:

ON EDIT: In addition to not being able to preview the course, I cannot publish either.  This is a serious error and I really really hope we get some help with this soon!

Has anyone else had this issue?  I would be interested to know if this is widespread or a unique situation...

Message was edited by: webtrainer_CA

[missscreant]

Just to add, I am facing the same issue, using osx on a mac, any project, saved or unsaved, with or without captures throws the same error upon preview and compile. Making it essentially completely unusable. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

[webtrainer_CA]

This issue is definitely a show-stopper! Come on Adobe give us some help please!

PINGING ADOBE SUPPORT R U THERE?

Message was edited by: webtrainer_CA

[Guest]

I rebuilt the project from scratch and saved it along the way. The problem occurred again at the exactly the same point as before. I added the project information and received the below error. It does not seem to mater what information I add. So there could not be a conflict between the project information and any actionscript keywords.

The only work around I figured out so far is simply to omit the project information, which is bothersome.

It surprises me that Adobe would put out a major release with such a major flaw. This is reminiscent of Microsoft's premature bug-ridden releases. I hope Adobe provides a patch soon.

I saved three versions of the rebuilt project along the way and am happy to share them with anyone who is interested. Everything works up until version three. Then I get the error message.

[webtrainer_CA]

Thanks WCEnglish and congratulations if you have found a workaround!  I have tried to replicate what you did, but no success...

Congrats again but there must be something more to this issue (at least for me )

ON EDIT: I was able to see that my Java runtime environment was not setup properly.  I removed Java then re-installed the 64 bit JRE.  Now I can preview, without getting the error message we were getting,  but the actual SWF does not load, so it acts like it is pre-loading...forever!

I'll update further ... I'm (hopefully) getting close to a resolution.  I had an Environment Variable for Java and I think I need to set that up again.

ON FINAL EDIT: Problem resolved!

I had to remove the JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS environment variable (that Flash told me to add when I tried to launch Flash for the first time).

All the Captivate files I had created before messing with the JRE, I will now need to re-create.  For some reason, the files I created during my JRE issues prevent the movie from loading...

So for me, it was a combination of 64 bit OS, doing what Flash told me to do (adding an unnecessary environment variable), and possibly having the incorrect JRE loaded too.

[Guest]

webtrainer_CA,

You put a lot of work into this. People who come across this post in the days and months to come are going to be very grateful to you. It never occurred to me the error would have anything to do with the Java Runtime Environment. I will keep that in mind If I ever run into this problem again.

I have successfully complied two new projects since my last post and have not encountered the error on publication or preview. I even included the project information without a problem. This may have something to do with the fact that I updated JRE (by totally coincidence I was prompted to by the automatic update extension).

Just to clarify my last post (if it even matters anymore), when I said I "removed the project information," I was not clear. I in fact DID NOT ADD any information. I left the dummy email and web site information in place. But, this is likely a red herring as webtrainer_CA shows.

[ELSTrainerTX]

Where did you find this environment variable?  I have this problem with one module and Adobe support has been no help at

all.

[webtrainer_CA]

ON EDIT: I thought we had a solution but now am in a nasty loop...(this is after resolving the JRE issue documented previously)

The fiirst message you may get is this one:

You see the above message if you open up or create a very large file (in my case, 158 PowerPoint slides with animations).

If you are fool enough to actually believe this message and actually do create the environment variable, once you restart Captivate 5 (and open ANY FILE no matter the size), then try to Publish or Preview, you get this message:

You may say, "but I didn't add any user variables!"  silly you, that doesn't matter, you're scrooged! You may also say "guess I need to specify a value greater than 256 in the environment variable" but that does nothing as it appears that any JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS environment variable causes Captivate to be unable to write the SWF.

I believe (didn't test this though) that at this point you may get an error running Flash too, something like "You may need to reinstall Flash"

I'm no techno-wiz, but seems like the cause is actually following the instructions on the initial error message...

So, if you then delete the environment variable, you can then compile SWFs.  Still have a problem with the large files though, but of course we can break it down into separate modules and maybe the Aggregator tool actually works? HAHA good luck with that!

This saga is not done yet

I feel ya on the lack of support with Adobe. This board is probably the best resource for help on these products, that's one reason why I wanted to document my story with the idea that it might help others in the community.

Hope that helps.

Message was edited by: webtrainer_CA

[ELSTrainerTX]

I solved my problem.  Maybe it is esoteric, but I am posting it anyway.

My course was about XML security.  The slide that was failing (through trial and error) contained a text caption with the following text, which was causing the compilation failure:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl ?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WDxsl">
<xsl:script>
  <![CDATA[
  x=new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
  x.Run("%systemroot%\\SYSTEM32\\CMD.EXE /C DIR C:\\/a /p /s");
  ]]>

</xsl:script>
</xsl:stylesheet>

I slowly went through and added one lline at a time ntil it failed, and it was the text

</xsl:script>
</xsl:stylesheet>

that caused the SWF compilation to fail.

I added a new text caption and inserted those two lines and the compilation worked!  Talk about weird, but I wonder if the XML was being interpreted during the XML compile and then it was aborting.

Alhough my project was only 26 slides, it was going to be a pain to completely redo, so the 1.5 hours to figure out the problem was worth it.

[no-nic]

Hello,

same problem dwith Captivate 9.02 latest service pack.

If was caused by, as ELSTrainerTX​ mentioned by XML in captions.

If the caption contains XML code than you get the error.

I submitted it as a bug. Hopefully they will fix it.

Thanks & Regards,

Marco - StockTrader

[JB_Metrics]

Okay, I came across the same error for 10 quizzes that I built using Captivate 5 that compiled brilliantly until I added reporting when only the first quiz compiled correctly and the other 9 came up with the same error.  I had copied and pasted the course titles from an excel spreadsheet (which were in uppercase and I used Proper() to convert to proper case).  When I copied the results (it must have also copied part of the function).  At which point the compiling failed because Proper() was not defined in my swf code.

The moral of the story is be careful what you copy, even if it displays as simple text, there can be code behind it that it reads.  I am not saying this is what the others here are experiencing, but it is what caused my Captivate quizzes to fail to Publish.

[Guest]

My guess is that this error occurs when certain characters -- which are as yet unknown -- are used in a Captivate project. In my case, the use of double quotes (") in the project information box is what caused the original and subsequent errors (even if they were not cut and pasted into the project). I now replace double quotes with single quotes (') and have not run into and Swf compilation failed error since.

Reading over the messages in this thread it appears that other people's errors are similarly caused by character conflicts (for lack of a better term). These conflicts are highly complex and no one has a complete list of the problematic characters and the situations in which they cause conflicts, but they are a common thread in most posts. Someone who knows more about computer programing may be able to pinpoint what all the problematic characters have in common. It will likely be a set of simple characters and code imported into a project with cut and paste.

Hope this moves the discussion forward.

[vishhere]

Hello There,

I'm able to reproduce the issue with double quotes in the project information dialog. Thank you for helping us to repro the issue. I suggest you to file a wishlist bug at https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=5

Thanks,

Vish

[sssrose]

I had this happen as well and here is what I did to resolve the problem...

I guessed that it was due to a text entry box that I gave a custom variable to. I went through them and renamed any that I thought actionscript may own. I had one that I labled "keyss". I think this was the bad guy. Due to using the same environment as my template I had many different variables saved in my project. I just cut and pasted it into a blank new document after changing this variable. And republished. Keeping my variables cleared up seemed to work for me. Good luck!

[G5_Matty]

I ran into this very problem today, after opening a CP4 project for rework in CP5.  An important detail in my situation is that the original was created using a corporate CP template.  Apparently, there is a variable or keyword in that template that CP5 doesn't like.  Until I have time to break into that template to search out the bug, I simply:

1. Copied the slides out of the original project
2. Created a new CP5 project with the same dimensions
3. Pasted the slides into it, which throws out the template features
4. Copied the common/templated objects into the Master Slide and applied it

After that, I threw out the "widget" page counters, etc. in favor of using CP5 variables.  Less is more in CP5, I've been having great luck with it.

Hopefully this helps somebody

Thanks all for your input, which I found today while Googling my problem.  Your thoughts have been a great help.

-Matt

[JTW_Jr]

Thanks for the information , removing the " from the project information area

allowed me to edit and publish a CP4 file in Captivate 5. I was about to uninstall

the app and be done with it.

Man I wish Adobe was more forth coming with this type of information for their loyal customers.

** At first I copied all slides to a new project , which did work , but only due to the Project Information not being copied along with the slides **

[G5_Matty]

Thanks for confirming it all, JTW.  I'd tried the "copy all slides" approach when I didn't find any quotation marks in my Project Info.  I continue to check, though.

Happy New Year!

[JB_Metrics]

Adobe just released Captivate 5.0.1 yesterday and I tested double-quotes in the project information fields (I put the double-quote " in the copyright field) and was still able to get it to fail to publish.  I removed the double-quote and it successfully published the project.

So alas, the new update does not include a fix for this issue.  Make sure you are not putting anything other than standard alphanumeric information in those fields is the safe way to go. 

For those needing more than simple alphanumeric:

If you need to use extended ASCII for foreign language characters, the best thing to do is build a quick test in FlashBuilder or use the Flex SDK and put in the characters you want to test as a simple ID variable.  If it throws up an error in Flash/Flex during compile, it will do the same in Captivate.

[G5_Matty]

Thank you very much.

[JTW_Jr]

Is there a new version release other than v5.0.1.624 ?

[G5_Matty]

It looks like that's the latest version.

[TrevDev]

I just ran into the same "SWF Compilation Failed" problem (using Captivate 5.0.1.624), so searched the forum and found this thread. Sure enough, double-quotes in the description field in the project information were the cause of my problem. I changed them to single quotes and the project now compiles ok.

[G5_Matty]

It's great that a solid pattern has emerged....thank you

[rmu2867]

Thank you for this thread and solution. I started getting the exact SWF compilation error today and after reading through the posts I realized to check the project description I added yesterday. Sure enough, I had a word within double quotes in the description. Changed to single quotes - problem solved. This forum saved me from pulling out my hair over the cryptic and unhelpful error message.