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Topic: Freezing Flash Interface? (Read 867 times) |
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MrBrain
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Arimaa player #344
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Freezing Flash Interface?
« on: Jan 10th, 2005, 9:05am » |
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Lately I cannot watch a game of Arimaa without the flash interface freezing up several times in a game and not following along with the game. Is this a problem at my end?
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« Last Edit: Jan 10th, 2005, 9:05am by MrBrain » |
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #1 on: Jan 10th, 2005, 4:57pm » |
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A problem may have more than one solution. You can argue that the persistent interface problems I had were all "at my end", because when I upgraded from dial-up to cable-modem connection all my problems stopped. (My OS and browser didn't change.) If I could fix things at my end, then the problem was at my end, right? On the other hand, I think it's fairly clear that the Flash client is not terribly robust or stable. Lots of folks have had lots of different troubles. I can tell you that the problem you are currently having hasn't afflicted me of late, so the problem must be "at your end", but even so my guess is that a whole raft of pesky problems might be solved by different engineering of the client. Have you heard the one about the communications guy who was taking target practice with a rifle? He shot ten times but was then informed by walkie-talkie by a spotter that nothing had hit the target. So he put his finger over the end of the barrel of his rifle and pulled the trigger, blowing the end of his finger off. Bleeding profusely, he says into his walkie-talkie, "It's coming out fine here. The problem must be at your end." (BTW, Omar, this is just a joke, not meant as criticism. You've always been a very patient listener about my interface troubles, and never once told me the problem was at my end. )
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99of9
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Gnobby's creator (player #314)
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #2 on: Jan 10th, 2005, 5:39pm » |
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I also suspect that solving the "ignorable flash error" that many of us get in mozilla would solve most of the crashes too (and possibly the freezes). But I have no idea about flash programming, so I have no idea how to solve it, or even how easy it might be to solve.
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #3 on: Jan 12th, 2005, 4:35pm » |
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Brian, there is a "feature" in the watch mode of the flash client that if you are stepping through the game history and a new move comes in, it does not inturrupt and automatically jump to the current position and show you the new move. The move just gets stored and you will see it when you get to it. Thus it seems like it is not following along with the game. There is an exception that if you are one of the players then when a new move comes in it does inturrupt and automatically brings you to the current position and shows the new move. It could be that you had stepped back and looked at some previous moves and did not bring the flash client back to the most current position. Try clicking on the >| button to bring it to the current position after viewing the previous moves. If this doesn't help let me know. Toby, that annoying pop is due to the flash client keeping the HTTP connection open for a long time. It will go away when I change it to use direct socket connections. But of course other problems may arise Good joke, Karl
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« Last Edit: Jan 12th, 2005, 4:41pm by omar » |
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99of9
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Gnobby's creator (player #314)
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #4 on: Jan 13th, 2005, 4:32am » |
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on Jan 12th, 2005, 4:35pm, omar wrote:Toby, that annoying pop is due to the flash client keeping the HTTP connection open for a long time. It will go away when I change it to use direct socket connections. But of course other problems may arise |
| Do you mean keeping the HTTP connection open from the start of the game until the crash, or do you mean keeping it open from the start of the move until the end of the move? In my experience some crashes can occur within a few seconds of opening the window, because a player has just submitted move 45 or something. So I'd say it's to do with the length of the move processing rather than the length of the game.
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RonWeasley
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Harry's friend (Arimaa player #441)
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #5 on: Jan 13th, 2005, 3:21pm » |
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My crashes are also related to move number. Usually after about 20. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Playing and watching. They're as reliable as the whumping willow.
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MrBrain
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Arimaa player #344
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #6 on: Jan 13th, 2005, 4:10pm » |
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Omar, I thought that might be it too, but it's not. I tried just watching without touching anything, and it still stops updating about every 3 or 4 moves. I've pretty much given up trying to follow along with the computer games.
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RonWeasley
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #7 on: Jan 26th, 2005, 1:56pm » |
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Now that I have a postal game that's reached move 15, I con look at it for only about a minute before Mozilla crashes. Very reliably. It doesn't matter whether I move pieces around or do nothing. I'm hoping this doesn't happen to my other games, but expect it will. Plan your strategy accordingly! Anyway, this is evidence that my problem is not connection time but something to do with move number. Does the message traffic include a refresh of the move history?
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99of9
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Gnobby's creator (player #314)
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #8 on: Jan 26th, 2005, 4:30pm » |
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Out of interest, what happens if you press plan and then close the original window?
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RonWeasley
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #9 on: Jan 27th, 2005, 11:13am » |
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I tried it. No crashing. I even played the game to completion. No crash. I crash only in the play window and the watch window.
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #10 on: Jan 28th, 2005, 6:08pm » |
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on Jan 13th, 2005, 4:10pm, MrBrain wrote:Omar, I thought that might be it too, but it's not. I tried just watching without touching anything, and it still stops updating about every 3 or 4 moves. I've pretty much given up trying to follow along with the computer games. |
| The freezing is probably also due to making long HTTP connections. It will go away when I change it to use direct connections. Unfortunately I won't be able to work on the next version of the flash client until later this year.
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #11 on: Jan 30th, 2005, 10:56am » |
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OK, I've started to get my first problems since getting a cable modem connection. Now when I open a game there's about a 50% chance of having invisible pieces. If all the pieces are there at the beginning, they won't disappear later, but if they start out missing I apparently can't do anything about it. For example, I can't move them around to get the starting setup I want. My hunch is that this is problem is not likely to be caused by keeping an http connection open for too long, because the problem happens really fast. I'm not much of a programmer, though, so I might be totally off base.
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camperman
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Arimaa player #960
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Re: Freezing Flash Interface?
« Reply #12 on: Feb 23rd, 2005, 4:10am » |
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I've had freezing and crashing Flash problems with IE, Mozilla and Firefox. I tried Opera (the free version) last night and no crashes or problems at all! It didn't stop my butt being kicked by robinson but at least I didn't have to restart the browser two or three times mid-game...
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