Actionscript 2 code stuck in memory?

Question

I have noticed that the output from my trace statements & dynamic text fields (for testing) has been getting stuck in memory. Each time I publish, unless I have made a lot of changes to my code, the published SWF does not reflect my latest edits -- making my debugging process really frustrating.

This is happening both in external classes and timeline code, when I comment out or even delete trace statements -- they still show up in the output. I have checked and double checked that I am working on the right files. I am working on them over a shared network drive. Maybe it is the drive cache that is a problem.

Has this happened to anyone else?

For example:

some_mc.onRollOver = function(){
    someDynamicTextField.text = 'rolling over '+this; // how I test on a live server
    trace(this); // sometimes required to get my text field above to update

    /* if I change or delete either of the lines above, 
           sometimes my changes won't update upon publishing. 
           For example, if I delete the text field, 
           it will still show up in the published/uploaded SWF. */
}

Any suggestions (besides moving to AS3 :)?

Answer 1

It's been a while since I worked with AS2 but I don't remember running into this problem. It almost sounds like a caching issue. Could that be the problem?

Answer 2

• when working with classes, select "Delete ASO files and Test Movie" instead of just "Test Movie". Flash makes a cache of compiled class files called ASO files, and these can confuse things

• Try deleting the SWF file you think you are viewing and check in the browser that it doesn't load - just to verify that you are looking in the right place. (I'm always making this mistake)

• If you are using Firefox, try installing the JohnnyCache add-on (or something similar) to always ignore the cache for certain URLs (e.g. your dev environment)