Shockwave content gives black page in certain browsers

Findings:

After deinstalling shockwave player and installing again, this time not "slim" but "full" version, all is fine. But why is there a slim version that differs from the full version? My assumtion was, that the "full" version is a standalone one, while the "slim" version downloads missing files when installing. Didn't realize that there is a real difference - and this will confuse many customers too.

Hi Milky_au,

thanks a lot for the infos. I'll pick up the idea of having "an own webbrowser" for another project.

I confirm very much with all points. Years ago I had that "black screen of death" on mentioned project, it disappeared with some update, don't know if that was browser or shockwave, at some undetermined time. Seeing the black screen coming back I was thinking of "didn't they finally get it after all those years?". At the same time I wondered why there are apparently only few people with this problem - searched a lot but couldn't find something particular on that topic, at least not in the dimension I would expect.

Completely agree with that "Norton" - issue. Coming to the point where you have to deselect it, many customers canceled installation at all, asking back why I excpect them to install such trash. I'm convinced that shockwave would be much more widespread used if there were not this shady installation process.

For the current project, we need the application to play inside a browser. In fact this was original a desktop application, and I had a lot of effort to make it shockwave - save. Reason is, we want it to play on a secured kiosk system, where people can choose to open the applicaton as well as to go to certain web sites, but not to others. Therefore we use the protection software "sitekiosk", which works best when started at boot time. Switching between the web and the application works well when the application itself is in the web. If not, there are problems with lagging when application starts, unsafe start processes, unwanted splash screens, windows in background and so on. But the kiosks are inhouse, so fortunately once running all is fine.

In case of anybody having related problems:

It turned out that at least in this case the black pages were my fault(s). I had mainly two different issues:

1. Preloading the new movie

2. Jump to the new movie

Preloading:

After building in a progress bar and monitoring the loading progress more in detail with "getStreamStatus" instead of only "netdone" I realised, that for some net connections I had to implement some broader timeouts, means it lasts longer than premised before even the first byte is on the way, and even if downloading starts there could be some long breaks. So in my code now I test every 10 seconds if there is a progress to the previous 10 second state. If a progress is recognized within 10 seconds, the 10 seconds starts from new:

on stepframe me

progress = me.checkstatus(p_int_NetId)

if progress[1] then

   LoadSuccess()

   me.loadEnd ()

end if

if _system.milliseconds - p_int_start > 10000 then

   if progress[2] <> p_flt_progressOld then

     p_flt_progressOld = progress[2]

     p_int_start = _system.milliseconds

   else

     noLoadSuccess()

     me.loadEnd ()

   end if

  end if

end

Jump to new Movie:

I didn't realize that my shockwave movie doesn't stop after reaching the end as a desktop movie does, but always starts from new. So the calling movie starts over and over again, having my "loaded"-Flag set and thus calling "gotonetmovie(targetmovie)" one after another. But like the help states:

"If a gotoNetMovie operation is in progress and you issue a second gotoNetMovie command before the first is finished, the second command cancels the first."

Here is, where different PCs (and different shockwave versions) behave different: For some, the time period to the next call is obviously enough to start the new movie - jump success. But not for all.

Considering these issues finally did the trick for me.

Thanks a lot - good to know there are people out there if having problems.