Theocacao: Embedded Script Error Dialog in Flash

Embedded Script Error Dialog in Flash

This is interesting. I was loading Engadget and Safari suddenly stopped responding to events. Just when I was about ready to force quit I saw this dialog.

First of all, kudos to Macro-Adobe for giving me the option to bail out of the script instead of just letting things run wild. However, does anyone know exactly what's going on here? The dialog reads:

A script in this movie is causing Adobe Flash Player 9 to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive.

Do you want to abort the script?

What exactly does it mean by "movie?" Is it embedded video in the Flash file? Is the script ActionScript? I've never seen this before so I'm a bit puzzled.

Embedded Script Error Dialog in Flash
Posted Dec 3, 2006 — 13 comments below

Carl — Dec 03, 06 2527

Once again, FlashBlock FTW.

Scott Stevenson — Dec 03, 06 2528

Once again, FlashBlock

That's a bit more extreme of a solution than I'd like, plus I don't really want to use Firefox.

Colin Wheeler — Dec 03, 06 2529

They must be putting some movie element on their site. I've noticed myself using Vienna that it sometimes stalls rendering Engadget articles. I didn't know what was causing this random slowndown, but in combination with your screenshot it's beginning to make sense.

Also I've noticed on my PowerBook G4 when it's bogged down doing many tasks at once and Saft reloads pages froma previous session Safari will pop up a dialog saying something along the lines of

"This page is taking a long time to load due to Ajax or CSS. Would you like to load this page without Ajax or CSS?"

Again that's not exact, but that's the just of it. If it happens again i'll try and take a screenshot.

Chris Grande — Dec 03, 06 2530

In this case "movie" is just in reference to the flash "movie" it doesn't have to do with video. This dialog has been in Flash since... I think version 8. Flash will present this message when a single script runs for 15 seconds or longer.

Chris Grande — Dec 03, 06 2531

I forgot the link to the tech note about the message: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_15512

Andy Finnell — Dec 03, 06 2532

Chris is correct. It's been in the Flash authoring tool for a lot longer (when you test scripts).

Also, for the record, I think the official name is "Macrodobia." That's at least what I, and others, called when I was still there.

Todd Yandell — Dec 03, 06 2533

When you use the actual Flash app to create Flash files, you're creating a "movie". It doesn't literally mean video.

I've seen that dialog too, though I can't remember what site it was on. I remember that it bugged me because it's a really great example of how not to design a dialog in OS X. It's missing its title bar, the buttons are in the wrong order, and are labeled incorrectly anyway (Yes? Yes, what?). And to top it all off, it even comes with that lovely zoom effect from OS 9.

Sam — Dec 03, 06 2534

That error has been there for a long time, used to see it lots when I was putting too much strain on Flash in some of my projects.

Macromedia coined the term "movie" for SWF files, so when it says movie it just means the embedded flash.

Mithras — Dec 03, 06 2539

I get that error pretty regularly when visiting the CBS Innertube site.

Andras Puiz — Dec 03, 06 2541

I get that error a lot. What struck me as strange was that it said my computer may become unresponsive, not just my / browser. Do they assume most of the readers still run Windows 95 or Mac OS 9?

Scott Stevenson — Dec 03, 06 2542

Do they assume most of the readers still run Windows 95 or Mac OS 9?

I think they're just making a general assumption that eating up CPU cycles will make things slow.

Erik — Dec 04, 06 2556

And you call yourself a professional web developer? ;)

Robert — Dec 04, 06 2558

I tested a client a short time ago, version upgrade, at a youTube like web portal ...

... it was written in Flash.

Dang slow compared to Quicktime, but wrote that up so they may have fixed it.

For ALL THINGS Flash, if you right/control click and go 3 dialogs deep into those dialogs you, USUALLY, get to a set preferences that will allow you to set the download speed for video clips -- although Flash does seem to, idle observation NOT confirmed insider info, consider EVERYTHING it runs a movie !!!

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