Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[me2222]

Damn, do you know the feeling when you´re working in Flash5 and you had no crash for some time (minutes?, hours?, days?), and then you do nothing special at all, just click on the stage, and, huh?, FREEEEZE!
****! You hit the reset button after you recovered from the first shock,... "when did you saved the work last time?"
Great! One look at the date of the last saved fla and you know it again. One full hour of work is lost forever. This little peace of application is killing me!

Really! Am I the only one on Mac with those randomly, completely unpleasant and inexplicable crashes in Flash5?
Yes, I have Flash5a, and yes, I assigned 64MB of RAM to it (does it demand more?), and yes, I am with OS9.1, and yes, I have virtual memory turned on (or should it be turned of for Flash?).
Please tell me you experiences. Does anybody have the solution?

[Subway]

Some of the peoples I'm working with have the same problem. But for me, Flash 5 works a lot better then Flash 4 and my Mac is really not clean at all.

I really don't know what the problem is.

For Flash 5.0a, it's not better when we talk about crashes when you ask me, the only big difference I can see is that the debugger is working now.

I have 80MB for Flash, Virtual-Memory on.

Flash 4 was very buggie when you have a lot of Scripts in it, but no problem with Flash 5. The debugger I'm working on right now have near to 500 lines code right now and no crashes.

[me2222]

Thanks for reply Subway,
It is so weird. Flash4a ran quite stable. Flash5.0 was hell, it crashed every two or three minutes, with 5a its better.
Another weird thing is that when I frequently save the work (every few minutes) I get no crashes! So maybe it has something to do with the "undo" steps and RAM usage?
Another thought is that it is a Hardware prob:
Sometimes while working, all open windows of Flash flicker (refresh?) for a short time.
I have one of those f**** Villagetronic graphics cards installed for my secondary Monitor. Villagetronic didn´t publish new drivers for over a year now, and I know the drivers causing some other problems with my Mac (i.e. at startup).

If Flash5 only had an autosafe!

[Subway]

Flickering of the screen is a "not enough memory" problem. If you work a long time with the same file, then all the undo/redo things are too much to handle for Flash. Save your file, close it and open it again. (I just remember that car MS joke)

For me, Flash 5 is working much better then Flash 4, the only wierd thing is that I have this "NON COMMERCIAL VERSION" on the splash screen and I updated normaly from my full version.

[Tinweapon]

If you're running the public preview of QT5, I suggest that you remove it and reinstall version 4. Also, you might wanna try deleting your Flash5 preferences file.

I had the same problems you explained, and this cleared it up pretty well

[Subway]

Maybe it's because I still have the "beta-tester" version on my PC

But anyway, the Mac update is working very well and if someone from MM is coming to my home I can show the licence

[me2222]

Originally posted by Tinweapon

If you're running the public preview of QT5, I suggest that you remove it and reinstall version 4. Also, you might wanna try deleting your Flash5 preferences file.

I had the same problems you explained, and this cleared it up pretty well

I have QT4. If there´s no need to, I don´t install betas or undone apps.
I´ve tried trashing the prefs frequently, no help.
But thanks for reply.

I just gave Flash more RAM and decreased the undo setting from 100 to 50.
Have to look how it works.

[LuminaryMedia]

I have been having the same problem. Unbelievable number of crashes even on simple timelines with very few elements. The screen will just freeze. Mouse movement is still possible, but nothing can be selected. If I press enter the timeline will start running press again it stops. OK!?!?

I played around a for about 20 minutes this way just trying stupid things to see if I could restore control.

>-------------------------
If you click on the path selection arrow and are patient (about 5 or 10 seconds later) everything wakes up and works normal. Why - Who knows - just try it. It has saved my a** at least 6 times today. The best part NO FATAL CRASHES!
>-------------------------

Rob

Biege G3 / 300Mhz / OS9.0.4 / 100Mb of ram allocated to Flash 5.0a. (I have tried upping it to 240Mb - it doesn't make any difference).

Hey Subway - we have the same start up screen - that is almost as frustrating as the crash. I also paid for an upgrade (to Studio w/Freehand9). It never even asked for the serial # and has been running that way since Jan. I hate it every time I start it up...

[8minus8]

i have QT 5 preview as well. it sucks when the beta runs out because nothing will work like wallpapers, images, nothing! then you try to install 4 it doesn't let you. i haven't had any real problems with flash 5. but i have alot of membery allocated to it, so that could be why.

[me2222]

Originally posted by LuminaryMedia
I have been having the same problem. Unbelievable number of crashes even on simple timelines with very few elements. The screen will just freeze. Mouse movement is still possible, but nothing can be selected. If I press enter the timeline will start running press again it stops. OK!?!?

BLACK MAGIC!
But most times my Flash freezes the whole system. No mouse movement possible, no reaction to keypresses, not even "ctrl-alt-apple-esc" works! The reset button is the only way to revive my Mac.
Sometimes Flash quits with an error2 message, but work is lost also, of course.

Yours and Subways "NON COMMERCIAL VERSION" splash:
I found that when I trash the Flash5 preferences file, I have to reregister Flash on next start. This could be a solution for you if you then enter the SN of your full versions!?

Markus

[LuminaryMedia]

sorry me2222

I run into that too. I was just surprised to find a way, stupid or not, to bail out with out losing everything. If others experience the same I thought it would be worth a try - even if it works for one other user. I think most of my problems may center around font issues that seems to be when it occurs the most. The more fatal crashes occur when I am moving keyframes around in the timeline. I have the timeline preferences set to the Flash 4 selection style option. I am wondering if that may have something to do with it.

I hope MM will get a patch out soon. I have looked at technotes, just not sure how to look up "Flash is really screwed" in their search. So I am not really sure to what extent they are aware!?! Until we make bug reports in mass with some documentation of behavior patterns we won't get s- from MM. I am still trying to figure out the pattern for myself to even begin to describe the issue. just pay attention to what you were doing when the crash occured - post a quick log and a bug report to them. Just a suggestion. I know it is a pain in the ass when your job depends on a broken tool - I hate having to redo work for something so stupid.

The undo history in Flash is really amazing - and scarry for memory issues on a mac. The undos are apparently contextual - I have gone back to a mc in the library that I edited over an hour before. With quite a few steps happening in other areas of the timeline - and it let me undo the last thing I did to that specific object or timeline. My thoughts were instantly - damn how did they pull that off - and what is that doing to my system. Sort of like editing a non linear history - you can get very screwy results when one object is linked to 50 others in the timeline.

Thanks for the preferences tip I will try that out.
-Rob
[Edited by LuminaryMedia on 04-22-2001 at 04:44 PM]

[LuminaryMedia]

I read through every technote under the search mac. Here's what I found so far that relate to 5.0 & 5.0a:
------------
Gamesprockets bug_ (applied to me)

http://www.macromedia.com/support/fl..._sprockets.htm
-----------
Corrupt Fonts_
http://www.macromedia.com/support/fl...rrupt_font.htm

Like I posted earlier - this may be part of the conflict - especially with the font preview menus.
-----------
Incompatible with Quicktime5 Public Preview_
http://www.macromedia.com/support/fl...view_crash.htm

I had QT5 beta installed at one point - it expired and left the computer unusable. I agree it was a pain in the ass to repair and reload QT4. I hope I am not having residual problems from that. I wiped out everything Quicktime and did a fresh install using my system start up CD.
------------
That is all I could find under mac - Rob

[LuminaryMedia]

oops - sorry wrong post
[Edited by LuminaryMedia on 04-22-2001 at 09:26 PM]

[jimarse]

I was having problems with 5 and if you ask me 5a was what is known as a placebo.

Now I have 5a running pretty good on 9.1 G4 with vertual memory off.

My two tips are these: Don't have the sound palette open until you need it and close it when done. And save the file under a different name everyday.

Good luck. Lets hope they do better on the carbonised version, huh?

Jimarse

[LuminaryMedia]

Yes,

I save a new version number of my file about every 30 minutes with smaller saves in between. I crashed in the middle of a save about 2 months ago and it corrupted the fla - no recovery. I guess I am extra paranoid now.

Rob
[Edited by LuminaryMedia on 04-23-2001 at 04:50 AM]

[garbage]

Hey - mine did that too ... crashed in the middle of an FLA save and wiped out about a month's development. The moral of the story is BACKUP REGULARLY!! Seriously, we all bang on about the importance of backing up your work, but how many of us actually do it?

Oh, don't risk corrupting your backup, either ... never save directly over your backup copy. Always save first, then copy the FLA to the backup directory. I'm trying to discipline myself to do this now, although even after such a heavy loss I'm still letting bad saving habits run riot!

Someday our computers will stop screwing us over at every tun ...

[LuminaryMedia]

Yes, option drag the file(copy) in the directory at the finder level is much faster for huge builds than save as in the app. It encourages the habit if it is easy & fast.

And hey - glad to know I'm not alone. It bit pretty bad. I needed a tranquilizer dart after that one.
[Edited by LuminaryMedia on 04-23-2001 at 05:49 AM]

[mnm]

if you have any corrupt fonts in your system folder you will get problems all over the shop, particularly ,in flash.

just replaced all our macs system fonts folders with my clean backup, and guess what, no more crashes, oh and as for extensions, if your given an easy way to streamline your system and eliminate conflicts (extension manager) and you don't use it then you will always have problems, if you don't use it why have it running?

[Urbansory]

My site actually crashed anyones browser who attempted to view it, since I published it with the Quicktime PR instaled. I unistalled it reinstalled 4 and my site is up now, but I have yet to find the time to finish it. Does anyone have problem selecting keyframes, compared to the way flash 4 allowed you to select keyframes? I experienced some weird crashes also, or I try to view a movie clip then my scene disappears, well this was all under the original 5. 5a is more stable, but i halways save like 4 backup, and test fla's just incase I need to go back or recover things.

[bardley]

i spoke to support at mm and they suggested reinstalling with the extensions off. i did that at the office and it seemed to run a hell of a lot smoother. I haven't tried it at home yet, but i really need to as i can empathise with all the woes, it's a right pain in the a** when one gets to the end of a job and the back up folder contains 53 .flas