I would like to have many devices testing a game, and I find the best way to debug a game and solve specific code problems is to have the device connected and in debug mode in Adobe ANIMATE, that way I can catch any Errors in the Output window.
For Example, if I am debugging and connected to Animate, the output window will throw errors like :
ReferenceError: Error #1065: Variable bg_storage is not defined.
at global/flash.utils::getDefinitionByName()
at Game/stageAdd()[/Users/**/Game.as:360]
Now I know exactly what the problem is and where to find it. I love errors like this.
My question :
If I didn't have a device connected to Animate in Debugging mode, is there a way to make the game detect any errors thrown and store them as a String, that way I can put up a big text block on the game of the error string and keep track.
or at least a way to log them some how?
Ex :
If an error is thrown, have that error text set as a String variable, then have a text box write out that String variable.
I hope that isn't too confusing. If I am going about debugging in a poor way, I would love to know what you guys do to keep track of errors without being connected to debug mode.
EDIT
I can see an approach is you to add an uncaughtErrorEvent event to each function to be able to catch these errors...
loadbar.uncaughtErrorEvents.addEventListener(UncaughtErrorEvent.UNCAUGHT_ERROR ... )
I am trying to make it so any error thrown in any part of the game will trace that error somewhere to a String value that I can call, so that I can see any error thrown during a play test session without being connected to debug mode.
Thanks!
Sure. There's a class intended exactly for that: https://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/UncaughtErrorEvent.html See examples at the bottom of the page to listen to the right instances for that event.
You are also free go grab my own class that does the thing you want: https://bitbucket.org/thydmitry/ru.delimiter/src/2756fadd741a6d44276fde1701470daf24cebfa8/classes/ru/delimiter/utils/Log.as?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default
You will need to add it to your project and then call in the main document class (in constructor, preferably):
Log.create(this);
Log.handleExceptions(this, true);
Within my Pure AS3 app (using IntelliJ) I'm getting the following warning:
"Member from unopened namespace" associated with the instance of the model.
The initial instantiation of the Model is fine (singleton) but each reference to it within the class that it's instantiated after the constructor are throwing the above warning.
The model it's self appear fine as is instantiated without issue from multiple other view classes.
Has anyone come across this before? Interesting that neither SO or Google verbatim throws up any results.
as ever, all suggestions and help appreciated!
Been dealing with a casting exception during design time only that getting me nuts.
I'm trying to create a custom control for winRT (a week view control just like windows phone 8.1). The control works fine during run time but in design time it gives me COMException. During my investigation of the cause of this COMException, I found out that there is a casting exception inside one of the component of my control. This component is a custom listview that implement ContainerContentChanging event. Inside this event there is a casting which raises this exception.
Here is a the custom list view class:-
The code is removed coz the source code is shared below.
The TemplatedListViewEntry cctor look like this one:-
The code is removed coz the source code is shared below.
And the AppointmentModel:-
The code is removed coz the source code is shared below.
OBS!!! while debugging using 2 instance of VS or VS+Blend and put a breakpoint before this line I can see that args.Item is of type ContentControl while during run time it is AppointmentModel.
Could it be a problem with the ItemsSource which is null at design time?
If yes how should I preceed and assign this_ If No, anyone here that can help me figure out what is the problem?
OBS!!! I anyone needs more info please ask and I would gladly share the entire code with you.
Edit 1
Even if i initiate my viewmodel in the cctor of the custom Control, it raises casting exception in Designtime and not in Run tim
Edit 2
After i wrote Edit 1 above i noticed that now i have to Cast exception in two different Styles (CustomWeekView style and TemplatedListView Style) this is if you open Generic.xaml inside Blend. It is really getting annoying and i'm out of thoughts now. That is why i decided to share the source code of this Project, hopfully someone will be able to help looking at it. Below you will see the source code.
CustomWeekView
Ok so I have game data parser that creates a game out of data file basically, it is using extensively getDefinitionByName which has one problem if the class is not loading somewhere else it throw variable not defined error information=ReferenceError: Error #1065: Variable {MyClass} is not defined. to workaround it I am using a class that holds all the list of components and instantiate it to make these classes available to the compiler.
Ok the question part is there any more efficient way to do that or playing with compiler argument or something ?
Is there something like export in first frame in flash professional as a compiler argument ?
I think what you want is to have a library project with all those "callable" classes, and then reference that library project in your game.
In flash builder, for a library project, you can check which classes are compiled (and so available to getDefinitionByName). (info here)
I'm really struggling to resolve a stack underflow that I'm getting. The traceback I get at runtime is:
VerifyError: Error #1024: Stack underflow occurred.
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at flash.net::URLLoader/onComplete()
This is particularly difficult to debug because when I run in debug mode it does not happen at all. It only happens when compiled as a release.
Does anyone have any tips on how to debug a Stack Underflow? Are have a clean explanation of what that means for Flash?
In case it helps, this error is occurring when I click a button whose handler makes an RPC call, which uses a URLLoader, an AsyncToken, and then invokes the set of AsyncResponder instances associated with the AsyncToken. With some server-side logging as well as some logging hacked into the swf, I know that the UrlLoader is successfully doing and GET'ing a crossdomain.xml file, is correctly processing it (ie: if I wreck it, I get a security error), and is also successfully completing the "load" request (the server sends the data). The underflow seems to be happening in the Event.COMPLETE listening/handling process (as is, of course, implied by the traceback as well).
mxmlc used = from flex_sdk_4.5.0.20967
Example player (I've tried a few) = 10.2.153.1
UPDATE: My specific problem is solved... but I'm leaving the question as-is since I would like to know how to generally debug such a problem, rather than just getting my specific solution.
In my code I had the following Application definition:
<s:Application height="100%" width="100%"
xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
initialize="InitData();">
Note that the code is/was attached to the initialize event.
InitData() and relevant defintions are/were:
import classes.RpcServerProxy;
public var SP:RpcServerProxy;
public function InitData():void {
SP = new RpcServerProxy("http://192.168.1.102:1234");
}
When I switched the InitData() call to be on the onCompletion event instead of initialize (thanks J_A_X!), the problem goes away entirely. What seems to have been happening was that the Event.COMPLETE event handler (onComplete in the stack trace) was using the global SP object. Something about the release (vs debug) compilation must have been affecting the startup timing of the SP variable initialization. Moving the handler later to the onCompletion event resolved all issues.
As said above, I would still like to know what tricks/tools are available for debugging initialization issues like this.
UPDATE 2:
applicationComplete seems to be an even better event than creationComplete to put application initialization code. See this blog entry for some explanation, and and this video (around 4:25) by an Adobe Tech Evangelist for an example of simple "start of application" data initialization.
I got rid of this error by adding compiler argument:
-omit-trace-statements=false
Stack underflow basically means the compiler messed up.
You can use SWFWire Inspector to look at the bytecode of the event handler, if you want to know exactly how it messed up. You can also use SWFWire Debugger to see which methods were called, but in this case, you already knew where it was happening.
If you post the broken swf, I can give you more info.
Sean is right that to debug it you can look at the byte code, but that didn't sound appealing to me.
Based on my experience and research, it is often due to the presence of a trace statement that incorrectly gets compiled out in release mode, and generates invalid byte code. So, I would say to "debug" it, "Look for places where you are using trace. Try commenting them all out in the offending function and see if the issue goes away."
In my case, it was a trace statement as the first line of a catch block:
catch (e:TypeError) {
trace(e.getStackTrace()); //This line is the problem
throw new Error("Unexpected type encountered");
}
I found someone else with this exact issue here.
This code also leads to stack underflow only in release mode (flag -debug=false):
true && trace('123');
mxlmc flex sdk version 4.5.0.20967, flashplayer version 10.3.181.14 (linux).
Check your code for similar expressions.
This code caused me issues when I compiled a release candidate from flash builder 4.5
public function set configVO( value:PopupConfigVO ):void
{trace("CHANGING")
Resolved by inserting a space between the the trace and curly brace
public function set configVO( value:PopupConfigVO ):void
{ trace("CHANGING")
Hope this helps.
For people looking for the same problem, I just got this caused by a trace statement in the 'default' case of a switch statement. Commented out the trace, stack underflow resolved.
Interesting... I was getting this error with a SWF that I'd pulled off the web, an Away3D based graphics demo. At the time I was running this on the Tamarin VM rather than the actual Flash/AIR runtimes, so could stick a breakpoint on the "verifyFailed(kStackUnderflowError)" line and see what was happening.
The -Dverbose flag also helped find the culprit:
typecheck MethodInfo-1480()
outer-scope = [global]
[Object~ Object] {} ()
0:pop
VERIFY FAILED: Error #1024: Stack underflow occurred.
And looking at the ABC using SWFInvestigator, I found this:
var function(Object):void /* disp_id=0 method_id=1480 nameIndex = 0 */
{
// local_count=2 max_scope=0 max_stack=0 code_len=2
// method position=52968 code position=155063
0 pop
1 returnvoid
}
So there is an obvious issue where the 'trace' has been removed but the compiler has put a 'pop' in there: I wouldn't have thought this was needed as a trace call should presumably have been made via 'callpropvoid'?
Quite why this doesn't fail on AIR/Flash I don't know..
Anyway: looks to me like an ASC compiler problem i.e perhaps one of the ActionScript3 compilers had a fault with this - hence the workarounds that have been mentioned so far.
It's quite simple, and it doesn't have anything to do with spaces before or after brackets, trace commands or whatever else: it's just 1 really simple thingy:
DO NOT LOOP EMPTY!
Meaning, while developing, we all //comment some lines sometimes, and when that results in
for (...) {
// skip for now
}
the compiler gets :
for(...){}
and that my good friends, is something the compiler doesn't like!
so, NO empty loops, and you're on your way again...
Happy hunting,
P.
I had the exact same problem, but in my case the cause of the problem was a trace statement in a place where the compiler didn't expect it to find it, right after a package declaration at the beginning of the class:
package utils
{
trace ("trace something here");
And that's why compiling in debug mode removed the problem.