SWF crashes when unloaded in IE7 and IE8; non standard code and iframes?

February 6, 2011 6:24 PM

A colleague is finding that a page on a server that includes a SWF can load smoothly and be viewed in its entirety, but it generates a JavaScript error message whenever that page is unloaded, but only in IE7 and IE8. (Line 1, Char 1, "Access is denied", Code 0, URL=SWF file name). Firefox 3.6 and IE6 have no problems at all. For some reason, the page has been designed to load the SWF directly into an iframe's src attribute instead of using the usual OBJECT and EMBED tags and associated parameters within a separate HTML page. Is this unloading problem simply IE7 and IE8 being extra-vigilant about security with non-standard code?

The iframe code looks like [iframe id="someUniqueId" src="nameOfSWF.swf" frameborder="0" height="600" scrolling="auto" width="800"][/iframe]. The page that includes the iframe and SWF is generated and administered by a third party who says that they haven't had any problems displaying SWF files this way before, and that my colleague's SWF must be sending out some JavaScript calls that are failing. However, I've looked at the FLA, designed for Flash Player 10 and using ActionScript 3, and I don't see anything that looks like a JavaScript call. I've checked for ExternalInterface, fscommand and javascript in the FLA's code, but nothing shows up. Is there anything else I should be looking at?

posted by The True Wheel to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

When the page is unloaded.... suggests possibly some script in the iframe (in the swf I guess) could be trying to cross a domain barrier or something.

I'd say check it out in a flash decompiler and check out the whole web conversation with a debugging proxy like fiddler, and then in firefox, even though it works, have firebug record the whole conversation and trace the javascript actions on unload to see what's going on.
posted by TravellingDen at 5:54 AM on February 7, 2011