FlashTips #6: Debug refresh issues in your swf

english mobile

Most of us know that Flash Builder makes it easy to debug a swf on a server by creating a custom debug configuration. Recently, I had a problem where I needed to be able to debug issues that happened when the browser window was refreshed.
Jeffry Houser, the brains behind Flextras.com, apparently had this very same problem, and resolved it by starting a new debugger session that points to about:blank and then connecting that to the swf after the window has been created.
That's a great solution, but the issue I was having was happening pretty much immediately after the window was refreshed--if I went through his steps, I'd "miss the window." So, after limping along for several hours, trying to figure out the problem without having the direct debug information, I finally figured out that the problem was amazingly simple:

  1. Create a new "refresh" debug configuration that doesn't point to a page with a swf in it (I didn't yet know that about:blank was an option).
  2. Start the original debug configuration, that points to the swf as normal.
  3. Get to the problem point in the application.
  4. Launch the "refresh" configuration.
  5. Refresh the window.
  6. Voilà, we are connected, from the very beginning of the bootstrapping process.
Enjoy!

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