Flash working only sometimes.

[KingLouisXIV]

I've been brushing up on a lot of web development recently and created a page linking directly to multiple .swf files. Upon clicking, some files autoplay in the browser (on a seperate computer from server), while others do not (the server's browser plays all files fine). There isn't any size consistency with the occurrences; and i've tested this with multiple computers outside the network experiencing the same result, so it's not just a flash problem specific to the client computer I've been working on. So, I'm stumped, any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Also, I had previously tried adding 'AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf' to the mime.conf which actually made the problem worse, making every file download only.

[jdMorgan]

I can only suggest gathering some more data. Look at the server error log file to see if there is any indication of the problem there, and also carefully inspect the HTTP transactions between the browser and the server using something like the "Live HTTP Headers" add-on for Firefox and Mozilla-based browsers.

 AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf 

Works fine for me in all browsers.

Do be sure you've also got the underlying .flv defined as well:

 AddType video/x-flv .flv 

That's about all I know about Shockwave and FLV files -- I don't use them much.

Jim

[KingLouisXIV]

Well, I checked the mime.types, and swf and flv were already defined. Another odd problem, is that all of the files that were broken yesterday, work fine now, but on some new uploads the problem pops up again... I did as you said, and there are no problems in the error log. Firefox live headers shows the broken files with an HTTP/0.9 type rather than the working as an HTTP/1.1... Tried googling around a bit, but I haven't found much helpful.

[KingLouisXIV]

Also, found out that the files being prompted for download have the correct size, but will not open.

Edit: They will open in flash player, but are blank.

[jdMorgan]

HTTP/0.9 ?

Look at two things: First be sure that you're not connecting to the server through a totally-obsolete proxy, and second, examine the logic of any "protocol down-grade" directives based on the HTTP user-agent making the request. Such downgrades were somewhat common years ago to handle (usually) MSIE flaws, and were typically implemented using mod_setenvif directives to set the "downgrade-1.0" and "force-response-1.0" server variables. I don't know, but it's possible that there might have been "downgrade-0.9" and "force-response-0.9" variables before that time.

It is also possible that an error-handling script (if you use one) is returning the incorrect server protocol.

Jim