How to best check if a Sound is loadable

[omniscient232]

Edit:
If i import a sound in the flash library, and then change the mp3 outside flash,
will the changes be in the new SWF, or do i have to reimport them?



I've created a load system to load external sound files, but i need a way to handle if the load went wrong, in which case he would simply not play the file.
Right now I get an error all the time. i just want it to not play the sound if it's unloadable.

how do i do this?

edit: It's unloadable sometimes when it can't access the files on another server.

[5TonsOfFlax]

Sounds like all you need to do is gracefully handle the error condition. If it's an error event, catch that event. If it's an actual exception, use try/catch to catch it.

[omniscient232]

Hey.
I took your advice:

var sound:Sound = null;
            var nUrl:URLRequest = new URLRequest("mp3ss/"+url)
            try
            {
                sound = new Sound(nUrl);
            }
            catch (e:*) {return null;} 

I made sure the soundfile didn't exist to test, but it still says: unhandled error event.
What is wrong with this code?

[5TonsOfFlax]

It looks like you have an error EVENT, not an ERROR. You'll need to add a listener for that event. Can you post the full error message you are getting?

[omniscient232]

this is the error:

Error #2044: Unhandled IOErrorEvent:. text=Error #2032: Stream Error.
at SoundLoader/loadSound()
at SoundLoader/doLoadBackgroundMusicSounds()
at SoundLoader/doLoadGameSounds()
at SoundLoader/startLoading()
at MainController/addedToStage()

[5TonsOfFlax]

Yep, that's an event. Those are not caught by try/catch because they are not really Errors.

You'll need to separate the sound instantiation and loading so that you can add your listener before the load.

var sound:Sound = new Sound();
var nUrl:URLRequest = new URLRequest("mp3ss/"+url)
sound.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, handleIOError);
sound.load(nUrl);

function handleIOError(e:Event):void{
  trace("whoops, sound not available due to IO error");
}

[omniscient232]

Well this is actually a bit of a problem.
Because the thing is. that function should have returned null if the sound load failed.
Is that possible with this method?
Or: When i now play the sound, what will happen if the load went wrong?
will it just not play?

[5TonsOfFlax]

Because the load is asynchronous, you can't know whether it works or not before that function finishes.

I don't know what will happen if you call play without a valid sound loaded into your Sound object.

[omniscient232]

I've decided I'm probably going to embed the sounds into my swf.
I've got tons of sounds. right now I just call a function loadSound(url:string) for each
how do i do this when i want to embed:

package
{
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.media.Sound;
    import flash.media.SoundChannel;

    public class EmbeddedSoundExample extends Sprite
    {
        [Embed(source="smallSound.mp3")]
        public var soundClass:Class;
        
        public function EmbeddedSoundExample()
        {
            var smallSound:Sound = new soundClass() as Sound;
            smallSound.play();
        }
    }
} 

2 questions:
first: I don't understand from the above code that i got from the internet how to use the sound you've embedded.
second: Can i embed entire maps of sounds at once?, or do i have to write an
[Embed(source="smallSound.mp3")]
line for every mp3 file?

[5TonsOfFlax]

You use the Sound made from the embedded mp3 in exactly the same way you use the Sound loaded from an external mp3 file. The only difference is in how those bytes become a Sound instance.

To use the Embed directive like that, you have to be using the flex compiler. You do have to embed each file independently.

[omniscient232]

Ah. i see.
How do i do it in flash?
Is there another way than simply importing it in the library? which is kind of a nuicance if you want to change the sounds often.
otherwise, i'll just do it that way.

[5TonsOfFlax]

I think that you do just have to import the mp3s into the library in Flash, but I almost never use Flash itself so I'm not sure.

[omniscient232]

If i import a sound in the flash library, and then change the mp3 outside flash, will the changes be in the new SWF, or do i have to reimport them?