[Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [

To test for yourself you'll need a tool to monitor bandwidth.

Here's a freeware monitor with a graphical display:
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-5-6.8035913

While watching bandwidth these issues become obvious, especially when changing urls.

Here's a Flash 4 application that loads swfs containing streaming audio to emulate a jukebox.

http://www.myrecords.com/mixtape/mixtape.html

When a user clicks forward or back an swf is unloaded and a new one loaded. Pressing stop unloads the swf. All this is done in a designated _level.

With a version 4 or 5 player the download stops when the swf is unloaded. This allowed the user to switch songs with only a short pause pressing forward and back.

With the version 6 player pressing forward or back only adds to the download. Doing so 3-5 times will create a large enough download cache that things freeze until the downloads are completed.

Use the bandwidth monitor with this url. Get a new song to play and press stop. Notice the download continue. Press forward a few times until it locks and then change the browser url. Make sure to dump the browsers cache every so often.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/e...shform/?6213=19 This is the URL to report bugs. I'm sure they already know about it but I think that this would be a great way to let MM know that developers feel that this is an urgent matter.

this is it

http://www.macromedia.com/support/em...shform/?6213=9

I have had so much trouble with certain sites bogging down my high-end computer. I have broadband and 768MB of RDRAM - I should never have a problem viewing sites, but I have encountered a few new Flash 6 sites (mostly FlashKit members' sites) that simply make my browsing experience unbearable.

I am so glad that all of you diagnosed this, and I now wait for MM's response. I too have never been one to bash MM - I am maybe one of their biggest fans, but this just sucks. They should be ashamed that a bug this big slipped by them.

I have reported it on their bug mailer just as many of you have - hopefully this will allow us to garner a rapid response.

Thanks again to all of you that spotted this.

hmm, i´m on the road with my powerbook and os X.
i´ve testet
http://www.myrecords.com/mixtape/mixtape.html
several times now with player6 and explorer,
i can press the forward and back button as often as i like, there´s nothing added to the download! (but a great music mix!)

just tried it again, works fine after min. 20 times clicking. stoppt it (left the player open) and my receive status monitor says: nothing.

so i can´t report a bug.
(but if there´s not a workaround in the next week for win-os, i will be executed by my customers)

migel: I have tested it on windows machines, IE6, Flash Player 6. I have tested both Flash 5 swfs and Flash 6 swfs. Both have the problem.
This isn't an issue with files being run locally, so while testing you won't experiance the problem, only once it's uploaded will things bog down.

Can anyone else confirm that this isn't happening on a Mac?

to be more precise:

mac os x 10.1.3
IE 5.1
Shockwave Flash NP-PPC 6.0 r21

stops when it should stop streaming

Well this is kind of a good thing, at least if it's not happening on a Mac then it is definitly a bug and not a 'feature'.
Now we just need to know when it will be fixed

C4_Tom: Can you try to load the root swf using the standalone player and do loadSound's or loadMovie with remote URL's to see if it shows the same problem? I wonder if this is only an issue with the IE plugin or not.

Right, I've done the test you've requested and found that the same issue exists on the standalone player. I loaded a remote file in from a local file. A few frames later I removed the holder mc. Sure enough, the content continued to stream in the background. This problem exists in the plugin and the player :(

Hi,

ok - so I don't exactly understand what that bandwith monitor is showing me, however it seems to me that on Netscape 6.2, Win2k this problem doesn't exist.

Leaving the site definitely stops the download for example and it seems that clicking forward/backwards doesn't add to the stream - although it's kind of hard to tell. It seems that the downloading stops for a very short time as well when you press the 'forward' button, so looks like the stream is interrupted.

Can't test it on any other browsers/platforms I'm afraid. Anyone else tested this on Netscape and encountered the problem?

- n.

Well, I've checked on my Mac and the problem counts for Macs too, unfortunately. Using macOSX, IE5.1
What you should do to check if all swfs are loaded totally: look into your cache at the filesizes! If you have a fast connection, it does not seem to be a problem, everything keeps on working fine and music or movies do stop if you request them to stop. But your cache will be full!
In some respect we could see this rather as a 'feature' then a bug: if you stop to download another movie and go back to download this movie again you could get into problems: you need a preloader, right? Well, now a preloader will be skipped rightaway.

Just keep on making small files, that's what Flash is made for in the first place.

http://www.flashlab.com :
All files only 2Kb

Small file sizes often aren't an option, and remember that small on 56k is very different to small on broadband

if you are talking code and vector graphics, sure, small file sizes are no problem. but what is being highly advertised about mx? video import, dynamic mp3 and jpg. file sizes can get big quickly with those.

What was the big advertising point of flash way back when I started with version 2, STREAMING, sure lots of people use preloaders now (too many I think) but flash was designed to stream, that was the whole point.
I tested the example, on winNT. IE5.5, player6, I listened to a song for a few seconds, hit the forward button, play, and so on, after about 6 or 7 songs my DSL connection (only 256K) was choked and it took about 15 seconds for the song to start as the others were still downloading. Fairly harsh user behaviour, but not completely unlikely. So even on a DSL line it can be a problem.
would be good to see a response from macromedia.

I tested your mix tape on a p4 2ghz -- 1GB of ram -- 1.8Mb/s connection -- using ie 6 - and Flash player 6.

I could press the next song button only 4 times before it was bogged down to the point that it would load nothing more. After about 30 seconds it finally started playing -- I assume the files were loading during this time and my computer finally got caught up with the load.

This is a real problem-- maybe not a Mac issue -I have not tested it on Netscape -- but dammit this sucks bad.

The majority of the web users use IE -- problems with ie plugins will really have a detrimental effect on this programs viability.

I sent a bug report to MM -- but I have not heard anything -- no autoresponder, nothing.

If anybody at MM reads these boards, could you please check up on this?

I have halted my department's use of Flash MX until this can be worked out. I hope this will be solved soon.

This is not a problem with MX, so you can continue using it. This is a problem with the Flash 6 player, even stuff developed in Flash 4 will go wrong if the user has the new player installed

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SOLOMONF
I have halted my department's use of Flash MX until this can be worked out. I hope this will be solved soon. [/B]

---

The problem appears to be with the player, not the authoring environment. Whether you author in MX or not doesn't matter - if a visitor comes to your site with the Flash 6 plugin they will experience problems.

(Thankfully, MM *do* update their players after release, as they did to fix bugs in Player 5)

Think we can be pretty certain that the player is the problem and its not a feature!

What would be nice now is to here when we can expect a fix so we can relay this to clients who are already concerned.

Anyone who hasnt posted a bug report to Macromedia needs to do so - have been told that multiple bug reports on the same issue prioritise the fix - and boy this needs priority.

Since we haven't got very far here could everyone who is affected by this problem post a message to the official macromedia board saying that they want this fixed.
The link is http://webforums.macromedia.com/flas...hreadid=306570

Hopefully if we get some steam behind that thread then hopefully Macromedia will take notice and do something about it.
I can accept having to put with with a few irritating bugs, or having to work round some of the odd things in Flash. But this is a serious bug that is having a large impact on us and our clients, it cannot be swept under the carpet and ignored. Most frustrating is that is a bug that is out of the control of the developer, and there's no way of guarunteeing what exactly our customers will see when they browse our sites.

I find it very hard to beleive that Macromedia doesn't already know about it and fully understand the disasterous potential that it has. What makes me very nervous is why we have heard nothing from them since Mike Chambers.
[Edited by Criticalflicker on 04-02-2002 at 11:48 AM]

Oh, and pmineault, let's not get nasty. I'm sure Mike was not fully aware of the problem. His remarks just came at an inopportune time.

Quote:

---

"And to Mike Chambers, you have a serious attitude problem, and I sincerely hope you get fired."

---

Let's keep this civil people. Send in your intelligently worded bug reports to the link near the top of the 3rd page of this thread and let's hope MM responds quickly with a fixed player version.

well, i can understand the upset. mike's comment was like the old joke:

patient: "Doctor, it hurts when i do this..."
doctor: "Don't do that."

Indeed, but in this case we simply can't stop doing it.
Any word Mike?
We'd like some sort of response please

http://webforums.macromedia.com/flas...hreadid=306570

This forum is starting to fill up quite nicely with some nasty messages. Lets keep hitting them there. If they don't notice then, they have no excuse.

Well Mike Chambers could have been anyone. I could say my email was @macromedia.com and who would be the wiser?

The best approach is to report bugs about the Flash 6 player to Macromedia.

In due course Macromedia will address the issue, or offer a new player version to fix the problem. It is in their best interest. Just think with each day that passes the version 6 player penetrates further. Which means more people will be exposed to a lessor quality experience. It's a matter of integrity.

I thought the seriously hoping someone gets fired thing was a bit far too. I mean that guy is probably not a developer - he is probably like Bently Wolfe or the other trolls sent out by Macromedia to help newsgroups. He is not to blame for cheesy glitches - and as far as an attitdue problem -- I did not see anything that constituted a bad attitude.

He seemed to be trying to help.

There is no reason for acrimony toward MM about all this stuff -- I think it is pretty obvious that there is a valid issue, and it is probably something stupid - have you ever written an application that has no bugs whatsoever?

At least they are not as bad as Microsucks, I mean microsoft. If this application was made by them, it would be riddled with bugs an potential security risks.

I actually wouldn't blame Mike if he just layed low for a while. This problem runs far deeper into the company than just the development team. I had my suspicions before that they may have rushed the products release but I think it has been confirmed to alot of people now that they did rush it. I'm sure that Mike Chambers does not feel like he should have to explain on behalf of Macromedia how this happened.

Here are my results going to the Mix Tape test URL with the Flash 6 player, and Internet Explorer 6 (version: 6.0.2600.0000.xpclient.010817-1148) under Windows XP using the Windows XP Task Manager/Networking tab. This is behind a Microsoft Proxy Server/Firewall -- still happens :(

http://www.metmar.com/external/bandwidth.png

(note that the % doesn't really matter. My LAN is faster than the DSL connection -- I assume it's being maxed out)

Icky.
[Edited by azzyt on 04-02-2002 at 12:32 PM]

yeah, I can understand the anger, this is a HUGE blunder and it's going to be a big problem in getting people (read: clients) to adopt the new player.

But, there's no need to be uncivilized. Let's all be cool and focus on documenting it and getting it fixed, not throwing around insults.

ps, Great illustration of the problem, azzyt!
[Edited by Kraken on 04-02-2002 at 12:27 PM]

Great illustration of the problem azzyt! Is there anyway you could post that on the macromedia thread?
One thing about this problem is that cre8tive is getting lots of hits :)

try it with some other sites or make a test application and post it on a different URL -- I am making an ap that loads multiple movies about 500kb a piece ( I can only see a problem if it's huge -- I never thought I would wish for a slower connection ) -- to see if I can find a work around to this whole thing.

ooo, I had a thought!

Azzyt, go to http://www.apple.com/trailers the apple quicktime trailers site. These are large files that progressively download. Just for comparison, jump into a few trailers, then use the browser's back button to stop the stream. Post up the results seen in your profiler...

Actually, Mike is a developer, and a pretty good one too judging by the kit he put out on mark-me.com a while ago.

I don't think the comment he made about not loading massive files into your movie was meant as the last word on the matter. It's pretty obvious MM made a boo-boo, it's clearly significant enough that we know they're working their asses off to fix it right now (I think Colin Moock has said as much), and I think Mike's comment was meant to be taken with that in mind (i.e. just chill out until we get this fixed).

As far as the guy hoping someone gets fired, that's just way out of line, and either his fingers work faster than his brain or he's got a lot bigger problems than the latest Flash player.

just my 2 cents

Mike

I absolutely agree with you Mike on the issue of not venting on Mike Chambers. I would not agree with you however that we should just relax until they get it fixed. The fact that we are relying on Mike and Colin Moock for information speaks volumes about MM.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kraken
ooo, I had a thought!

Azzyt, go to http://www.apple.com/trailers the apple quicktime trailers site. These are large files that progressively download. Just for comparison, jump into a few trailers, then use the browser's back button to stop the stream. Post up the results seen in your profiler...

---

Well, ok. Here goes.

http://www.metmar.com/external/quicktime.png

I guess this proves it's a Flash problem and not IE, since these trailers are Quicktime and everything is as it should be.

Has anybody notified Macromedia as a Security Issue rather than a general "wish-list" bug?

http://www.macromedia.com/v1/develop...ne/AlertUs.cfm

It would also be appropriate to notify NTBugTraq or if it's cross platform some other BugTraq. I can do this if nobody else has.

http://www.ntbugtraq.com

I can really see this being used in a malicious way (it could be done even with Footers here, although I'm sure it wouldn't be up long), and it would be nice to have confirmation from Macromedia that they also see it as a security threat.

This truly is a ****y situation we have been put in by MM. As developers we have been adding to MM's stocks by using and pushing Flash to our clients and the entire Web culture, and you would think that 'New' means 'better'. As the faulty Player is more and more distibuted, our value as devlopers is dropping. Potential clients might be viewing our portfolios as we speak, and think that we do are not as good as we claim we are. What bugs me the most is that all our work is affected by this bug, not just the most recent ones.

Comeone, people. Let's all add to cre8tive's thread at http://webforums.macromedia.com/flas...hreadid=306570
Let's make that thread as big as this one and let MM know that it's not only a few of us that are angry. This affects every single Flash developer who has ever used loadMovie to give their user's a more pleasant experience on the web.

Flip.

It's nice to see that we're getting some responses now, when I originally posted this thread nobody seemed to be interested. Now that people see that this is a serious issue hopefully between us we can get something done about it.

I have posted an article on Actionscript.com that should help to get Macromedia's attention. In it I post a link to this thread.

Hopefully, this will help motivate Macromedia to get something done quickly.

-scott
http://www.scottmanning.com/

with that headline - you were'nt exactly mincing words were you--

brutal headline

cheers - good job