After submitting the results from an HTML form, I test for the presence of the flash plug in by using a sniffer and direct the user to either the Flash or non Flash version of my site. I use a PHP script to append the posted variable to the flash movie in both the <PARAM,MOVIE,VALUE> and the <EMBED> tags. While this method works fine for most browsers, It has been brought to my attention that some browsers do not accept it even with the right plug in. Some versions of IE load the movie fine without the variable at the end but just sit there waiting for the time out (set in the sniffer by using the <REFRESH> tag) when the variable is appended to the movie.

My guest is that those browsers are trying to load a file named movie.swf?variable=value instead of the movie named movie.swf WITH a variable called value. And before you ask, yes my server is properly configured and yes, I am sure the movie is completely loaded befor any commands are sent. I have experienced this poblem with IE45 for the MAC and some versions of IE5 running Windows. If any of you guys can think of a solution (may be another way to get a variable from a post and load it in a flash movie without using the ?variable=value), I would be happy to hear of it.