Flash Will Not Play

I am having problems getting a Flash (.swf) file to play when the page loads. I do not get any type of error messages, it just does not play.

Let me explain what is going on. I am running Microsoft IIS on my localhost for testing pages I design for our company. I use Microsoft VWD 2008 Express Edition and Micorsoft Expressions for developing web pages. I am using XX to develop the .swf files.

When I load a page that contains the .swf file using either of the development tools, the file plays as it should. If I load the file by navigating to it through IIS, the .swf file does not play.

Can someone help me with this?

Try using another browser. Internet Explorer will not play a swf file without it being in a web page.

IE7 does Bill.
You will get a blocked ActiveX security message, but it will play fine without being embedded.

Ah-ha...I had the flash plug in disabled in my IE7 settings. I don't recall making that change but I must have at one point. :o

The ActiveX warning doesn't pop up when the .swf is in my IIS home directory.

The .swf file is embeded as a flas object on a web page. When I view the page from either of the development enviroments, it plays just fine. Both of these environments have the MS developer server running.

When I display the page via IIS, the .swf file does not play. Same page, just being launched differently. I have also double clicked on the .swf tile then told the system to use IE7 to view the file and it plays fine then also.

I have checked several things on IIS (made sure it was set to run both scripts and executables) and even went in and made sure that .swf was set up as a MIME type and still no luck. I have talked to others who said they had problems with Flash file and the uninstalling and then reinstalling the Flash Player solved their problem. I tried that as well. Still no luck. The darn files just will not play when I have them inside a web site and launch the web site as localhost using IIS.

I have given the same files to one of our developers and they have embeded them on a web page (using the same exact code I am using) and the page is on a hosted server that is also running IIS and the darn thing works there. I am sure I must have missed some kind of setting on IIS but I am stumped.

It should not have anything to do with the browser because I am using the same browser to look at the web page in all of these instances.

dcahall,

Flash has some security set ups that stop running certain swf's from the local computer. If they're created in Flash it redirects you to an Adobe page were you can select to overide / trust this file on your local computer. This could be your problem. If it is then it's a problem only you should encounter not visitors, so perhaps your chasing your own tail here a bit.

Not sure if this is your problem but worth mentioning.

The .swf files were created with XX. I have checked the security settings and can not find any that would appear to block the files. I do not get any type of error messages, warnings, and any mention of needing to go to Adobe or anything of that nature.

I just get an empty block where the .swf file should be playing. I have discussed this with several people who are also familiar with both Flash and IIS (which BTW is version 5.1 becuase I am running Windows XP) and no one seems to have a clue of why this is happening. There has to be a reason :)

When I put the exact same code and files on a production or test system the pages display fine and the .swf files play. It is just from my localhost that I am having problems. I have been "living" with it by loading the files on my local machine via the development server (which is a pain when I am trying to get feedback from users). At this point I am trying to understand why this happens.

I do appreciate all of the feedback I have gotten and I am willing to explore all suggestions - I want to understand why it happens so I can eliminate the problem on future projects.

Which version of IIS are you running and which version of Windows?

It may be a setting within IIS Manager. Knowing the version will aid in tracking down a possible solution.

IIS Version 5.1

Windows XP

Interesting that no one has ever come up with a solution. I also posted to an Adobe forum and no one has answered that one either. I have tried modifying all kinds of settings on both IIS and my browser and nothing has solved the problem.:mad:

I cannot duplicate the symptoms you describe.

I did manage to receive an error saying I was not allowed access when trying to open a .swf file on my local IIS on Windows XP. I simply had to enable Intranet settings to correct that problem.

Maybe a problem with using "localhost" as source. Try to setup an alias for your localhost:

c:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost testserver

After that, call your webpage with http://testserver/... instead of http://localhost/...

Or install the Apache Webserver on your computer. ;)

Remi

Good suggestion Remi but that did not work either and installing Apache is not an option for me.

I am still stumpted by this whole darn thing..............

Well, it took forever but I finally found the IIS setting that was blocking the content. Under the Directory Security tab in the IIS console for the web site, I did not have the Integrated Windows authentication box check under the Authenticated access panel.

So, if anyone else runs into this problem, checking that box allowed the .swf file to play on my localhost. I do appreciate everyone who tried to help me solve this issue.

Glad you sorted it out dcahall and thank's for the update. It's always better when someone posts the answer to a problem.

Have u found a solution to this problem? I'm experiencing it too.
I'm using IIS 7, Flash CS5, Visual Studio 2008.