Here's a simple bug in Flash Player 9 that crashes every browser I've tested it in. Simply call Sound.play(position) with an out of range position. For instance, the example below plays a 25 second sound with a starting position of 30,000 milliseconds.
This bug wasted an hour of my time while I tried to figure out why short tracks were crashing a computeSpectrum demo I built, but long tracks weren't. It turned out I had set a starting position of 2 minutes to jump to a particularly dramatic part of one of the tracks I tested, and I had forgotten about it. Hopefully this post will save someone else the same pain.
This will almost definitely crash your browser, so check to make sure you don't have anything important open. If it doesn't crash, post in the comments with your browser / OS / player version.
Click here to turn off the internet (err, view the crash demo)
UPDATE Feb 29, 2008: This bug was fixed in a player 9 update (r60 I believe). Be aware that it can still affect your users, who may not have updated!
Comments (28)
Yep, crashed my browser. FF2 / Windows XP Pro / Flash Player 9
Posted by: Dave at May 28, 2007 06:37 PMURL: http://localhost
Dude! You broke my internet!
Posted by: Keith Peters at May 28, 2007 06:38 PMURL: http://www.bit-101.com
Crashed mine too. FF2/Win XP/FLP 9.0.45
Posted by: Algis at May 28, 2007 09:19 PMURL: http://www.incito.lt
FF 2.0.0.3, Win Vista, FLP 9.0.45 and crashed.
Posted by: sascha/hdrs at May 28, 2007 09:37 PMURL: http://www.hiddenresource.net/
Yep broke my internet! Safari (2.0.4/b419.3) MacOSX 10.4.9
Posted by: Weyert at May 28, 2007 09:43 PMURL: http://www.innerfuse.biz/blog/
Crashes on Firefox 2.0.0.3/Mac OS X 10.4.9
Posted by: Aaron Heimlich at May 28, 2007 09:53 PMURL: http://aheimlich.freepgs.com
crash:( win xp, firefox 2, FP 9.0.45
Posted by: fandango at May 28, 2007 10:40 PMURL: http://www.fandango.cz
no crash:
Posted by: Danger at May 29, 2007 12:18 AMWindows Vista + IE7 + Flash Player 9
URL: http://www.dengjie.com
camino gone
Posted by: ubi de feo at May 29, 2007 02:41 AM:)
URL: http://www.randomtype.com
crash:
Posted by: mlinaje at May 29, 2007 02:45 AMVista + Firefox 2.0.3 + FP 9.0.28.0
URL: http://www.ruxproject.org
Didn't crash on Lynx ;-) (Sorry, I didn't even test it, but after hours of work that's the level of humor that pops into the head :-)
Posted by: Tore at May 29, 2007 06:14 AMURL:
Opera 9.20
OS X 10.4.9
Crashed
Posted by: chris at May 29, 2007 08:56 AMURL:
Hi Grant,
I've filed a bug for the crash.
best,
Posted by: Emmy Huang at May 29, 2007 12:35 PMe
URL: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/emmy
Crashed.
Posted by: William from Lagos at May 29, 2007 08:49 PMIE7, Win XP SP2, Flash Player 9
URL:
crash mine too... vista ie7 flash player 9
Posted by: German at May 29, 2007 11:15 PMURL:
This bug also affects the Flash authoring tool as well. I crashed it a couple of times after passing an undefined variable to Sound.play().
Posted by: Jeremy Nicoll at July 7, 2007 04:22 PMURL: http://www.goldnoteexpress.com
I just wanted to thank Grant for posting this blog. The hour you spent discovering this problem has already saved time for tons of others. Thanks on behalf of developers everywhere!
Posted by: NeAl at August 13, 2007 01:52 PMURL: http://www.punkmusic.com
Hi,
no crash for me :
Posted by: dada at August 21, 2007 06:47 PM- XP SP2
- Firefox 2.0.0.6
- Flash Player 9,0,60,184 (maybe cause of this ^^)
URL:
Hi,
no crash for me :
- XP SP2
Posted by: dada at August 21, 2007 06:49 PM- Firefox 2.0.06
- Flash Player 9,0,60,184
URL:
crashed!
Posted by: Bernardo Kuri at October 31, 2007 02:54 AM- XP SP2
- Firefox 2.0.0.8
- Flash Player 9,0,45,0
URL:
... oh man, thank's a lot for this info ...
This bug got me crazy today !
I would probably be still stuck on my screen, roting my brain off without your article ...
And it seems that not so many guys wrote about it ... that's the only info I found !
Bye...
- XP SP2
Posted by: Nicolas Guionnet at December 3, 2007 12:55 PM- Firefox
- Flash Player 9,0,45
URL:
No Crash...Firefox 2.0 Mac OSX
Posted by: William Khoe at December 14, 2007 07:35 PMURL: http://www.williamkhoe.com
-FF 2.0.0.11
-XP SP2
-flash 9.0 r115
no crash ... maybe the new player had a patch ?
Posted by: lol at February 8, 2008 11:46 AMURL:
No crash for me.
IE6 (Intranet, can't do anything about it)
Posted by: Mark Luker at February 28, 2008 02:49 PMFP 9,0,115
URL: http://www.exxonmobil.com
You have version 9,0,115,0 installed
Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Windows Vista
NO crash..
Posted by: Andrey at February 29, 2008 09:02 AMURL:
It did crash Firefox 2,0,0,13 with Flash Player 9,0,115 in WinXP.
But I fixed this by running Firefox in WIN98/ME
Posted by: Philip at March 28, 2008 12:18 PMcomparably mode.
URL:
No crash for me, FF3 w2k3
Posted by: Pham Son Ha at June 14, 2008 11:50 PMURL: http://inghe.vn
Yeah crashing for me, also wasted an hour on this!
Posted by: flash design at July 7, 2008 02:17 PMURL: http://www.bozboz.co.uk