Without actually being able to provide a link (client project not yet released) I need some help with a problem I'm running into with Flash and IE7.

I've got a flash movie that serves as the navigation for a photo gallery. The main image of the gallery itself is in html, with the flash feature basically just being a scrolling set of thumbnail images.

If you click on a thumbnail image, the HTML page reloads to a new photo (each photo has its own unique URL) and the flash piece loads again, highlighting your current image in the set via a variable passed into the movie.

The data comes into flash from a PHP script that outputs XML-formatted info. The thumbnail images are externally loaded. The actionscript is AS2 and I'm using swfobject to embed the movie:

var tso = new SWFObject("/flash/thumbnails.swf", "thumbnails", "75", "<?=($pHeight+24)?>", "9", "#000000"); tso.addVariable("photoid", "<?=$event_photocode_array[$imgsrc]?>"); tso.addVariable("eventid", "<?=$event_row[event_id]?>"); tso.addVariable("eventcode", "<?=$event_row[event_code]?>"); tso.addVariable("eventname", "<?=$event_row[slug]?>"); tso.addVariable("accentcolor", "19d2d7"); tso.addParam("scale", "noscale"); tso.write("flashContent");

This works great in every browser (IE6, Safari, Firefox, Opera), but in IE7 it only works the first time. I'm using mod_rewrite to create friendly urls, and basically what I seem to have been able to determine is that for any given gallery url, IE7 will load the flash movie correctly the first time, but it fails to load any thumbnails on subsequent requests from the same gallery url.

So for any one of these urls, IE7 will load the flash movie correctly the first time I visit. /event/1/bla-bla-bla /event/1/bla-bla-bla?grid /event/1/bla-bla-lba/200505-001

But if I were to try to navigate to another one that shared the path, all subsequent IE7 flash loads fail (not entirely, but to load data).

But if I try to access a totally different event, then the flash movie works again (once): /event/2/foo /event/2/foo?grid /event/2/foo/200804-015

My HTML file's basehref is set to the root of my web directory. The call to the flash movie from the html targets the root with a leading slash. My request for the php file is an absolute url. My requests for the thumbnail images are absolute urls.

The data from the PHP file seems to load successfully each time, because I can see that the proper thumbnail clip is highlighted as being active. But the thumbnail images themselves never load in IE7 after the first time.

I apologize for not being able to provide a link - it's as frustrating for me as it is for you I'm sure. But any thoughts or help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

This is, in theory, unrelated, but I would add a random variable as a querystring to the file name "thumbnails.swf?r=<?=time(); ?>"

Then, when calling the thumbnails, add a similar random querystring to each image name.

I'd recommend getting hold of Charles fromhttp://www.charlesproxy.com/download.php and using it to monitor exactly what requests flash is making. It is a great tool.

You, sir, are a freaking genius. I added a random string to the filename, and that solved the problem.

Also, Charles is very nice. That's a great find.

Well, as I say, it should be unrelated, but that is a common enough hack. Glad it worked.

I've actually used that same principle before to make sure the user is always getting the latest and greatest version of a .swf, but it didn't even occur to me to give that a try to fix my IE7 problem.

So clever, and the .swf itself is only like 6k so I'm not concerned about forcing users to reload it. Win win

Originally posted by: scudsucker I'd recommend getting hold of Charles fromhttp://www.charlesproxy.com/download.php and using it to monitor exactly what requests flash is making. It is a great tool.

thanks for that link, sounds like a useful tool indeed.