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Thread: crashing standalone app

  1. #1
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    crashing standalone app

    Using Flash MX 2004, I’ve created a standalone children’s game that I’d like to put on CD and distribute. For ease of use, I’m have the game auto-installed on the user’s PC, so the kids can just put the CD in, install the game, then click on the icon on the desktop. OK, I’ve had no probs making the projector exe, or getting the game auto-installed.

    Here’s my problem … I’ve recently run into problems where the game will crash. I don’t know how to get the information I need from the Windows “crash box” and its accompanying log dump to figure out why it is crashing. I’m suspecting it is a memory overwrite problem.

    My flash project has gotten rather large with a lot of graphics and audio in it. When I publish a movie report is says the swf is 5.2MB. Quoting some tech notes on the Macromedia site “Creating a file for desktop delivery often makes a file that is much larger than a web-delivered SWF. It may work, but users often have problems exporting a projector or SWF file that is over a few megabytes in size. The same files can also have problems during playback, such as crashes, inconsistent playback, slow playback, file corruption and unpredictable behavior in logical statements.”

    My project was designed as one .fla file holding all the graphics, movie clips, and audio resources. The fla holds very little action script. The action script is all in .as files.

    Can anyone give advice on how I can figure out why my game is crashing? And if it may be a problem with having the swf too big, will the prob be fixed by breaking the project up into multiple swfs and then combining them into one executable? And would I have to have a 3rd party tool to do this?

    I’m fairly new to flash, but I’m learning a lot by reading this board. Thanks for any help you can provide.

  2. #2
    FK's Official Mac Hater jasonsplace's Avatar
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    I don't think that it would have anything to do with the filesize. Two years ago I created a standalone that was 70 MB and it was all in one file for a long time. I eventually broke it up to speed up the load time but I never had it crash. I did use SWF Studio when I made it which may have contributed to the non crashing part but I have created large projectors before without it. Of course this could be a problem with Flash MX 2004 as I have still only used Flash MX.

    Is it only crashing on your computer or on other computers too?
    Jason L. Wright
    I'm not that hard to imitate. Just make some random negative claim at Apple or anything else for that matter and then have nothing to back it up.

  3. #3
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    Thanks for the response, Jason.

    The game has crashed on 2 different PCs running XP. It seems to always crash in the same place although it only intermittantly crashes at that place and the crashes are very infrequent (maybe only one out of a hundred times it runs that section of code).

    Since you've created very large projects, and since I'm not having problems with inconsistent or slow playback, it's probably an error in my code. I'll have to scour it and figure out what may be going on. Any suggestions for catching/logging errors?

    And just for my edification ... do you suggest breaking up big projects into separate swfs and then combining them into one executable? Do you need 3rd party software to do this? Do you like SWF studio? What are its advantages over MX 2004?

  4. #4
    FK's Official Mac Hater jasonsplace's Avatar
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    I wouldn't guess that it is a problem with your code. If it were, it would go slow and then come up with an error that says that your scripts are causing the player to run slow. Do you want to abort.? At least that is what it does to me

    I would probably break it up if I were you. If you don't want to use a third party tool you could just have 1 exe that loads in other movies using loadMovie. In order to combine multiple files into one you will need a 3rd party tool. I like SWF Studio the best. It isn't a replacement for Flash. It gives you a set of extra commands and functions that you can use. You then publish your movie in flash as an SWF, not an exe and import it into SWF Studio. It will create the EXE for you. I hope that answers your question.
    Jason L. Wright
    I'm not that hard to imitate. Just make some random negative claim at Apple or anything else for that matter and then have nothing to back it up.

  5. #5
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    That does help. Thank you. When you say that you created a standalone that was 70MB are you talking about the final exe, the swf, or the fla? My fla is 62MB, the swf is 5.2MB. Thanks.

  6. #6
    FK's Official Mac Hater jasonsplace's Avatar
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    My EXE was 70MB. It was a Training program for my company with 8 1 hour sessions quizzes and a database. It was huge and took forever to build.
    Jason L. Wright
    I'm not that hard to imitate. Just make some random negative claim at Apple or anything else for that matter and then have nothing to back it up.

  7. #7
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    Wow, that is huge! Do you always like to push the limits?

    Thanks for your help.

  8. #8
    FK's Official Mac Hater jasonsplace's Avatar
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    No problem...let me know if you get it to work and how you did it.
    Jason L. Wright
    I'm not that hard to imitate. Just make some random negative claim at Apple or anything else for that matter and then have nothing to back it up.

  9. #9
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    I have a problem that seems the same. I am creating a program on CD Rom heavy in video. Already over 70 MB it is is starting to corrupt the exe file when publishing. Would this 3rd party program fix the problem?

  10. #10
    Lifetime Friend of Site Staff Northcode's Avatar
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    If it's generating corrupt EXE files there's a very good chance the SWF is being clobbered too. Have you tried saving and compacting your FLA? The source of the corruption could be the FLA. I would try that before turning to a third party tool, just to make sure you get to the root cause of the problem.

  11. #11
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    I'll try that I posted in another thread more details of the problem. Seems like I have too much going on in the file...

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