New instances not resetting its Timers and Childs - actionscript-3

Question

(I'm working in AS3 and Adobe AIR for iOS SDK).
The program has two classes: the first one is Program.as which is what the FLA file is linked to. In Program.as there's a function to start the program and another to restart the program. The second class is my Main.as class which calls the finishNow(); function from Program.as to restart the program.
It runs fine on its first run-through. The problem is that nearly as soon as it restarts, it seems to KEEP restarting itself on its own. It gives quite a few ArgumentError: Error #2025: The supplied DisplayObject must be a child of the caller. errors too. I've also noticed that some functions such as TIMERS do not start from 0 again when the program restarts?? I'm really stumped because the logic seems to be okay, but the traces say otherwise.
Putting traces inside Program.as shows that the finishNow(); function is being called repeatedly after the first run. The problem lies with the programRestartTimer not resetting on the new instance. By calling the stop(); function on programRestartTimer temporarily fixes this. From the Error #2025 that keeps showing, I suspect that display Childs which were not removed (or similar – such as other Timers also not resetting) in the first run are causing this problem. This would suggest that either the program is NOT creating an entirely new instance, or it is not possible with AS3??
Program.as:
package {
import flash.display.MovieClip;
public class Program extends MovieClip {
var runMain:Main;
public function Program() {
startNow();
}
function startNow() {
runMain = new Main(this);
addChild(runMain);
}
function finishNow() {
removeChild(runMain);
runMain = new Main(this);
addChild(runMain);
}
}
}
Main.as:
package {
import flash.display.Sprite;
public class Main extends Sprite
{
public var program:Program;
var programRestartTimer:Timer = new Timer(8 * 1000);
public function Main(stageHolderTemp) {
program = stageHolderTemp;
trace(program);
someFunctionsThatDrawGraphics();
moreFunctions();
}
function callFinishFunction():void { // this is called at the end of the animation
programRestartTimer.start();
programRestartTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, restartProgram);
}
function restartProgram(e:TimerEvent):void {
programRestartTimer.stop(); // this line is a temporary "fix" to stop the program from constantly restarting
// it doesn't actually fix the full problem
program.finishNow();
}
}
}

Answer 1

It sure is possible in AS3 to design a class so that it will be able to re-initialize itself. But this requires carefully devising the restart routine.
First, your callProgramRestart() function adds a listener to the Program instance, but it is never removed, this will cause your program to reset twice after the second call, which is most likely the cause of your remove child errors - you are removing them twice in a row. You can completely eliminate the need of that listener by utilizing flash.utils.setTimeout() (the manual) and targetting it to call restartProgram function.
function callFinishFunction():void { // this is called at the end of the animation
flash.utils.setTimeout(restartProgram,8000);
}
function restartProgram():void {...}
Second, you should do the "full" reinitialization somewhere. Your method of creating another instance of Main class should most likely work, but you should clear your listeners off former Main instance properly before calling this.