• Registered: 2009-05-19
  • Posts: 4

Topic: Large gallery hangs Flash Player during load

I've searched the forum for posts related to this issue, but I didn't find any. I have embedded an instance of SV with a large number of images (over 1200) into another .fla. There is a reason I have all 1200 images in one gallery instance rather than several, and everything works fine except for the following issue:

During the time that SV initializes (between the output "setViewerFlashVars" and "[SV] SimpleViewer PRO V2.1.2") Flash Player is unresponsive. The five or six seconds that SV takes to initialize is not a problem, but I don't seem to be able to implement any sort of preloader solution in that period because Flash itself "stalls" during that time. I've tried everything I can think of, including using an external loader to load both the preloader and the .swf containing the gallery, and Flash hangs every time (until "[SV] SimpleViewer PRO V2.1.2." is traced, and then everything works as expected).

I know it is the size of the gallery.xml file that is causing the problem - if I substitute a gallery.xml file containing a small number of images Flash Player doesn't hang, and the preloader plays without pause.

Does anyone have any suggestions of something I might try, or am I just bogging down Flash Player?

thanks.

  • Felix
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  • Registered: 2006-03-16
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Re: Large gallery hangs Flash Player during load

What happens when you load the 1200 images into SimpleViewer on it's own. Does it freeze up?

Felix Turner
SimpleViewer Support Team.

Felix's Website

  • Registered: 2009-05-19
  • Posts: 4

Re: Large gallery hangs Flash Player during load

Thanks, Felix. I just tried that, and it appears to behave the same. I opened simpleviewer.swf directly in Flash Player Debugger, and I got the "pinwheel" (I'm on a Mac) when I tried to expand or close the window during the approx 5 second initialization period. After that, all is fine. (I get the same behavior when trying this on a web server, so it's not related to running locally.)

  • Felix
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  • Registered: 2006-03-16
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Re: Large gallery hangs Flash Player during load

The delay happens while Flash processes the XML file. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid this for very large galleries. It will be quicker on faster machines.

The work-around is to split your gallery into multiple smaller sub-galleries. Bear in mind that that a 1200 image gallery may take around 2 hours to click through.

Felix Turner
SimpleViewer Support Team.

Felix's Website

  • Registered: 2009-05-19
  • Posts: 4

Re: Large gallery hangs Flash Player during load

Thanks, Felix. I figured as much, but I thought I'd ask. I built a detailed menu so the user can jump to specific sections, and I would just as soon break up the gallery, but the person I am working with is stuck on the idea of having everything in one continuous gallery. Perhaps I can talk him into six smaller galleries to obviate this issue . . .