FileReference.browse() stops playback on some Flash Players

Question

We have an issue were the server session associated with a Flex client times out when the browse file dialog is open for a time longer then the configured session timeout. It seems that on some players, the playback is stopped when browse or download on a FileReference is executing. This also causes remote calls to be blocked and hence our manual keep-alive messages are not sent to the server, resulting in a session timeout.

I searched for some info on this in the docs and found a notice of it, but it does not explicitly list the players it does (not) work. Would anyone know were I could find a complete list?

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PS: here are the links that mention this behavior:

• http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=17_Networking_and_communications_7.html

While calls to the FileReference.browse(), FileReferenceList.browse(), or FileReference.download() method are executing, most players will continue SWF file playback.

• http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/net/FileReference.html

While calls to the FileReference.browse(), FileReferenceList.browse(), or FileReference.download() methods are executing, SWF file playback pauses in stand-alone and external versions of Flash Player and in AIR for Linux and Mac OS X 10.1 and earlier

Anyone knows what is meant with an "external Flash Player"?

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PPS: we tested this on Linux (10.0.x and 10.1.x) in Firefox where it seems to stop playback and on Windows (10.0.x) in IE where playback seems to continue.

Answer 1

Nothing you can do unfortunately, it's a blocking call, and Player shares resources (incl threads) across multiple instances of the AVM when it can, to use less memory. Chrome, Webkit 2, and FF4 (3.7?) should be OK because they isolate the plugins in separate process spaces, and Player doesn't get a chance to do that. Unfortunately because it's blocking, Chrome will popup a dialog complaining that "a script is taking too long to execute" if you take your sweet time selecting the file :(

github.com/Adobe/FlashPlayer sure would be nice, innit? :-)