FLASH PRO MX 2004 READY FOR PRODUCTION

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 11:36 AM

No way. Since it's release, I've been impatiently waiting for the moment I could start using Flash MX 2004 for my day-to-day work and projects, but it seems like (even after the update), the product is not ready yet.

Ever since the release of the trial versions for Flash Pro and the different components of Studio MX 2004, I was very excited about the time when I would start using it for actual work. Sadly, Flash hasn't been behaving as expected, not even after the dot release, which might have fixed whatever bugs, but not the overall performance of the product. It still takes awhile to launch, a lot more to compile even the smallest movies ever.

Yesterday it was the worst: Flash crashed or closed itself without any warning 6 times in less than an hour. Further more, it appears that this behavior is inherent to Dreamweaver too. Both would never open before trying to launch them 3 or 4 times after a crash, and Windows would never show an alert dialog box or anything at all. Sometimes you would hear a sound or see the programs trying to open in the taskbar, and then nothing... I just hit the pillows earlier than I expected, frustrated.

I thought that there might be an issue with my system, but nothing of these happens with other applications. As a matter of fact, Fireworks has proved to be a lot more robust, compared to it's previous incarnation and to the rest of the gang in MX 2004.

I don't think Macromedia should stop other developments to fix Flash, but they sure have to start working extra hours to deliver the product they offered when we opened our wallets.

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JOHN DOWDELL

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 12:23 PM

"I thought that there might be an issue with my system, but nothing of these happens with other applications."

The one doesn't preclude the other... the actual test case there would be whether other people can avoid crashing six time an hour in both apps, and routinely this is indeed the case.

I don't know what's up there, but from what I see in the rest of the world it should be addressable. First step is to hit known issues in technotes... if that doesn't reveal a known cause (font problems, constrained RAM, eg) then the next step would be those first things tech support would ask, the one-or-all-files test, the one-or-all-sessions test, what a system diagnostic reveals, whether the symptom persists on a bare restart without customizations.

I'm sorry I can't tell you what's up there, just from what I read above, but I do know that you should expect to have the same mean-time-between-failures that others do.

(At this point someone often comes into a thread saying "I'm crashing too", and the point still holds... compare your experience to the majority, rather than the exception, and then find the cause behind the exception.)

CHAFIC KAZOUN

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 12:40 PM

Well maybe I can add a me too.

For me Flash 2004 has been pretty stable, but the funny part is I rarely use the IDE for doing anything more than just working with the library or compiling. I work 90% of the time in an external editor, then just switch over to Flash and compile/debug/organize the library. Because of this I have not had a lot of issues with the IDE.

When I have had to work with the IDE, it has generally been stable except for the times where it crashes. It is weird, but when it starts crashing it crashes a lot (like you said 6 times in an hour). Other times it works well for a whole week without issues. I have also had issues where Flash causes other applications to stop responding, but that has happened only a handful of times and just requires me to restart or just shut flash down completely.

DW on the other hand is completely useless on my machine. I almost crash every single time and have pretty much stopped using that product.

OSCAR TRELLES

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 01:05 PM

Agreed John, maybe I should have described my experience in greater detail, instead of just cry myself out, but you have to understand that having Flash close itself when you're just trying to copy some code is horribly frustrating...

However, Chafic is helping me here a lot, as it seems his experience is almost exactly like mine. Around the release of the dot version of Flash Pro, I had been happily using it without a problem, and was considering a move into production. However, as Chafic describes, when Flash starts crashing it won't stop... even if you restart your computer, it will run slow as hell, and even compromise other applications.

Curiously, this hasn't happened in my laptop. There, Flash has given me almost no trouble. However, I could never start Dreamweaver since I installed it there... I tried until I just got tired and lost all hope. Then, one day, I forgot about the issue, launched Dreamweaver and has worked without a problem even since...

The only difference between my desktop and my laptop is the number of monitors, which shows an erratic behavior in both Flash and Dreamweaver. I haven't been able to test in other machines for obvious reasons, but now I'm sure I'm not the only one experiencing performance anomalies.

CHAFIC KAZOUN

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 01:13 PM

Just to add, the issues I mentioned happen to me after the dot release but the dot release did make the IDE more stable. To me as I mentioned, I don't have frequent issues like I did before the dot release. How often does your Flash crash? For me it now does not crash on a daily basis, but when it does as I mentioned it usually leads to a string of crashes.

I had a hunch once that maybe it had to do with working with older MX Fla's. Do you remember if when you were having those issue, was it while you were working with an older MX Fla?

OSCAR TRELLES

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 01:32 PM

Nope, it has been almost always documents made from scratch within F04. It doesn't crash on a daily basis, but yesterday it crashed like crazy... as you say, it would crash time after time after time, for no apparent reason.

Something I forgot to mention is that every time any other application crashes or needs to be closed because of unresponsiveness, Windows pops an alert box asking if you would like to send a report. Well, it doesn't happen when Flash or Dreamweaver crash.

CHAFIC KAZOUN

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 01:34 PM

That last part about the prompt because of the crash is interesting. I never get that here. If Flash crashes I usually get an alert box.

BRIAN LEROUX

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 01:49 PM

I find the crash thing will only happen later in my day. Its the compile time in F2004 that drives me up the wall. I am doing everything now as AS2 classes and the more classes I use/import/have in a movie the longer the compile. A conservative estimate, I spend about an hour each day waiting for SWF's compiling. It sucks. I find too that dreamweaver is a completely useless product due to the poor performance.

SHARON SELDEN

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 05:17 PM

Hello, I am a Quality Assurance Engineer on the Flash team. Thank you for posting this problem. We are currently trying to reproduce it here. I sent Oscar and Chafic an email requesting more information. It would be extremely helpful if you guys could take a few moments to respond and provide more info. Thanks in advance for your help.
- sharon selden

BRIAN LEROUX

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 06:47 PM

I'm running an AMD Athalon XP 1800+ with 1gig of DDR ram and an 80 gig harddrive. I have a 64 meg NVidia graphics card. The Flash IDE runs ok but begins stalling when I compile AS2.0 movies into a SWF-- all the movies are usually either imported into classes or implemented into classes that are associated via linkage to clips in the library. Avg compile time is anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds. If you need any more data just email me.

KMAX

DECEMBER 2 2003 @ 01:19 AM

Maybe you nailed something Oscar...

I was wondering about this too, on a cheap laptop no crash, on my working pc, 2 monitors, same behavior than you experimented. To add to it, when i do word via remote desktop from my laptop on my pc, (1 virtual monitor then), no crash at all.

I'll do some testing knowing this...

K

ROSTIK

DECEMBER 3 2003 @ 06:22 AM

My F04 have become much more stable and works faster after installing the update to v7.0.1.

FMILLS

DECEMBER 3 2003 @ 07:47 PM

Flash MX 2004 Professional continually - every day - shuts down basic Windows XP operations. The most consistent errors are disabling my right-click for the entire operating system (I shut down Flash and this problem disappears, every day), and making the main menu bar disappear (usually in IE 6 and Outlook Express). These problems happen all the time, and on both of my systems running Flash MX 2004 Pro. On one system it occurs much more often. And the cure is ALWAYS shut down Flash. Another problem that sometimes occurs is Flash does not allow me to run other programs at the same time (if Flash is running, I cannot open them up).

These problems were not fixed with the Updater, and personally I find them disgraceful and inexcusable. They have been reported to Macromedia more than once since before the software was released and I have not heard a response. I hope these critical flaws are fixed eventually because right now I only run '04 out of necessity and that's at a bare minimum. It still takes forever to load. I cannot see myself uninstalling Flash MX until a better program is released. I cannot believe all of these problems people have (I'm not the only one experiencing these issues) are not reproducable by anyone on staff, but these kind of problems (including these specific problems) run rampant in the purchasing community. Seems weird to me.

RYDERS

JANUARY 19 2004 @ 01:11 PM

There is something strange going on with Flash, I am running a dual monitor setup on windows XP pro, with more than enough cpu and ram. I work with Flash, Dreamweaver (mx2004 versions), Photoshop and Illustrator (cs versions) on a regular basis, and up until Friday I couldn't have all the apps open at once. If I open them in that order F,D,P,I... Illustrator gets all its windows open, kicks up a "Illustrator can not complete the requested operation" dialogue and then quits.

You would think that 4gb of Ram, a Dual 3.2ghz Xeon + nVidia FX3000 card would be enough juice... wouldn't you?

UGGG.

On Friday, I got fed up and started going through hte msconfig startup files and services... basically turning them all off. And then all back on one at a time (Startup Manager style) and thought I had found the culprit... the nVidia Startup files... but after restarting with the other general startup files (Wacom support, Suitcase...) I still seem to max out the system resources. I can get the main 4 apps, outlook and winamp going... and A couple of folders... but Then I still run into a brick wall.

OSCAR TRELLES

JANUARY 20 2004 @ 10:38 AM

4Gb of RAM?? Wow... how does that feel? :)

So, most probably it is not hardware-related. What amazed me at the begining was how erratic those issues appeared. Now I'm finding some patterns, just like you.

Just I minute ago, I had Flash open in my desktop (well, I left the computer on all night), and when I tried to open Photoshop, I got the 'Unable to complete operation...' error. Solution: close Flash...

RYDERS

JANUARY 27 2004 @ 04:26 AM

DUDE... That is EXACTLY WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. This issue has been driving me nuts and I thought I was the only one in the world experiencing it. It's like flash is gobbling up all the OS's resources.

4GB or RAM, it feels like some breathing room. It also feels like it should be enough to handle any sort of resource requests. Sigh.

I feel better knowing I'm not insane and alone though.

I've gone through the wringer on this too, trying to figure out how to get past it. Your solution is the only one I've found. But it annoys me no end that I can open up all the apps I want under OSX.

This is the only place on the web that I've found any reference to the issue at all.

MICHAEL CHALK

JUNE 8 2006 @ 08:32 PM

wow, i wonder if anyone found a solution to this .. my flash mx'04 on win.xp (p4)has started doing the same thing. i open a file in the program, and boom, the program closes. No warning, no goodbye, no check in the mail. it was fine before, i wonder what the heck i've done. Recently changed video card - oh maybe that is related? My good new video card died, so i put in an old crappy one :((