Flash :: Your Methodology In Debugging

Your Methodology In Debugging
Hi there, just registered to this forum so I'm NEW.

I have, however, used this forum for information and learnt from the tutorials. Good content!

Anyways, I have a question about debugging a movie---in particular, where and how you guys set breakpoints.

The reason why I'm inquiring about this is because I find it very inefficient to debug. I have to basically set breakpoints in every line of ActionScript to have it traverse through the lines of code.

I come from a VB background and in the debug mode in Visual Studio or any VBA IDE, it halts itself to even step through calling functions within another function or routine.

In Flash it doesn't do this. In order for me to traverse through the steps of any calls or line of ActionScript, I have to place breakpoints where I want to be able to step through.

Am I missing something?

I'd appreciate anyone enlightening me on how debug more effectiviely. After all, its the most effective way of learning ActionScript.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

VBC

Design Methodology....?
Hi All,

I am wondering...

With the main components of any movie being:

Movies
Movie Clips
Scenes
Preloaders
(is there more :P ???)

How / what is the best way to link them all together into one seemless transitional masterpiece.

Is there a proven 'rule of thumb' design methodology for peicing together a final movie..???

or am i asking for the recipe to the scret herba and spices

Appreciate your insight

Cheers !

Architecture And Methodology
I have a question for anyone who would like to tackle it.

A project in front of me involves a map with nearly 100 different buttons, irregular size. When the user rolls over a button, the area must fade in and out smoothly, and the tween must not be compromised by a premature roll-out. The tween must continue to run it's course.

With a few buttons, this could be achieved by having a boolean flag in the button 'over' and 'out' states, and playing various states of a subordinate mc, that correspond to value of the flag.

What do you think is the best way to go about building this for such a large number of buttons?

Actionscript Methodology
this is a pretty general question about when to use actionscript and when to use plain tweening/frame-by-frame animation techniques. im working on a site that, after the preloader, goes through a maybe 4 second transition to the homepage and has subsequent 1-2 second transitions between the other pages. my question here is, in your experience, is it better to do page transitions using actionscript to control the movement of various objects, or is placing movie clip objects and using tweening/framebyframe a better way to go? my main concern here is with reducing file size and choppiness.
i guess this question boils down to: is actionscripting ALWAYS necessarily better (from an optimization POV) than oldschool flash animation methods?

discuss.

Dimension Methodology…
If the goal is to achieve optimal speed and performance, when embedding a flash file into a html is it better to design the flash element to be the size you want it, say 800x600 – or - Build it smaller, say 640x480 and rescale it in html: width="800" height="600"?

Multiple MC Methodology
I'm trying to sequentially attach 37 separate MC's into one scene but I'm having trouble getting the next MC into the main scene after the very first has played. Any suggestions on methodoogy to follow in this situation? Place an instance of each MC on the stage and then proceed frame by frame? Stick a little script at the end of each MC attaching the next MC? Can an array hold MC's? Just trying to look before I leap.

AIGA - Cool Methodology. How...?
http://designarchives.aiga.org/

I'm guessing for the volume of information involved (especially images) that they must be using a php script to create the the database. Thoughts? Thay can't he hand coding all this material.

Multiple Swf With Multiple Image Load Methodology.
I can't seem to get my head on straight tonight.

My scenario is thisÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¦

One main site frame swf and one swf per page, I have a small pre-load anim for the frame itself and one nice pre-load anim in the main frame to use with the subsequent pages.
In the default page I am loading right at the start I have an image gallery with several images loaded using a single MovieClipLoader instance. I'd like to monitor the load of the page and the image loads using the root level preload anim I'm wondering if using a single MovieClipLoader am I precluding this from working since the loads are happening concurrently.

How would/do you handle situations like this?

Thanks,
J.

Debugging
i am using the debbuger, but when i am adding a global to the "watch"
in the same way i use it in the current script that i debug,for some reason i can't see it's value and it tell's me : undefined!
for exmaple if i am in a button or movie clip and try to had a global variable like this :
_root.myVar or ../:myVar it isnt working!why???????
thnaks
peleg

Debugging Php
hey all. ive got a pretty simple php form-mailer in my flash movie that for some reason refuses to function. ive got a bunch of form items in my movie, and when the submit button is clicked, it runs this script:

loadVariablesNum("mailer.php", "0", "GET");

which passes all of the variables into mailer.php. i know that the variables are correct b/c i put a trace() call immediately preceding the loadVariablesNum () call and they all showed up fine. the variables that are passed are:
php_toEmail - my email address
php_subject - subject of the email
php_name - senders name
php_fromEmail - senders email
php_comment - comment

mailer.php looks like this:
<?
$ToEmail = "$php_toEmail";
$ToName = "John";
$Subject = "$php_subject";
$EmailBody = "Sent By: $php_name
Senders Email: $php_fromEmail

Message Sent:
$php_comment
;
$EmailFooter="
This message was sent by: $php_name from $REMOTE_ADDR If you feel that you
recieved this e-mail by accident please contact us at blah blah blah";
$Message = $EmailBody.$EmailFooter;
mail($ToName." <".$ToEmail.">",$Subject, $Message, "From: ".$php_name." <".$php_fromEmail.">");
?>

however, the email never gets sent!
my server uses PHP4.2.2 and mailer.php is in the same directory as the flash file. i have no idea what im doing wrong. any help would be greatly appreciated.

cheers
j

Debugging Help
I have a movie that works fine. It goes through a loop and duplicates a movie setting the properties each time.

A line from the Debugger looks like this....

_level0.char1.letter

When I take these frames from the root and put then in a movie clip called Fly, put Fly on the _root level, the properties of the duplicated movies do NOT get set.

A line from the Debugger looks like this....

_level0.Fly.char1.letter
........._level0.Fly.char1.letter.instance10

Basicly what is causing the extra line and how did I get ride of it?
........._level0.Fly.char1.letter.instance10

Help With Debugging
HI

I'm having troubles getting my site to work and do not know where to post for help.

I'm using movies posted by FlashKit members and modifying them to fit the context. My actionscripting is very basic so i cannot explain where the problem is without someone taking a look at my FLA file. If thats OK, which forum is appropriate?

THX in advance :)

RIff

Debugging
This is my first attempt at using Flash.

http://www.aljoy.com/solarpsychology.html

Very incomplete.

I'm trying to get a percentage preloader to work. It worked fine until I uploaded it to the site. Now, it starts at 54%. I'm trying to use the debugger to understand what I did wrong.

Not clear on how to use the debugger. I have searched for information on this site and still don't understand.

The debugger pauses and prompts:
"The Flash Player is paused so that breakpoints may be adjusted. Click Continue to start the movie."

What am I looking for? What does it mean to adjust a breakpoint? Thanks in advance for any assistance.

MaryL

Debugging?
I'm trying to get my personal portfolio website to work so that I can get a job. The problem is that it works, but only when you've run through it a few times, otherwise it sometimes jumps to the wrong scenes ect. the address is
http://home.cinci.rr.com/lorienking/
please take a look and let me know if you can help! thanks

Debugging?
I have am trying to control a movie clip with a button but I am having trouble getting it to do so.

Is there a way to see what the frame position of that movie clip is whilst testing the movie?

I am using this to play the movie clip:
on (release) {
if (_root.page01._currentframe == 1) {
_root.page01.gotoandplay(1);
}
}

and it works once but the next time I press the button it doesnt play.

There is an action at the end of that movie clip telling the movie to go back to frame 1 but I guess it isnt working.

Any ideas?

Debugging Help
I am in dire need of some serious debugging help. We've been working on a dynamically loading photo gallery... but we cannot get it to work properly.

www.candidkama.com/2008

If anyone is interested, I have also posted this in the freelance section:

http://board.flashkit.com/board/show...59#post3989459

I am willing to part with some cash for good assistance in wrapping this up quickly. I will send you the FLA and the actionscript files and you can fix them for me.

Thanks!

Debugging AS 3
I am writing the script code using FlashDevelop and that script is then being used in Flash CS 3 animations. I run the movie from FLASH IDE. How can i debug things from FlashDevelop. Since neither i can put a break point in FlashDevelop before luanching movie from Flash CS 3. how can i integrate these 2?

Debugging
I could really use a hand with this one:

I've made this site in flash, and there never were any errors inside of the movie, but when I tested it yesterday some error turned up saying
Quote:

Originally Posted by silly flashplayer

a script in the movie is causing the flashplayer to run slowly, if this script is executed your computer might become unresponsive, do you want to abort the script

...which most of you will recognise, but the strange things is, before when I clicked the yes-button with other movies the movie just started to freak out because a script wasn't executed...in my case though, when I hit the yes-button, the browser becomes unresponsive

I couldn't figure out what line of code is causing this error so today I ran the debugger (control > debug movie)...so the movie began running and then some kinda output window showed up and then flash became unresponsive as well

So what do I do now??

Any help/suggestions are mostly welcome

- Ruben

Can Someone Help Me With Debugging?
I have a preloader before the movie I made...seperately, both elements work fine....

but when I put the preloader before my movie...my movie freezes up...
would anyone volunteer looking at my .fla file?

I really appreciate any time or attention...

Thank you so much
Mark

Little Help Debugging I Tried But I Cant See...
So, i made this menu [see attached file]

what happens is this, all goes well everything goes where it's supposed to but there is some trouble with the spacing.

now i'm kind of tired of looking at it for the day, if one of you can take juste a moment i'd really appreciate

the .as included is from : http://laco.wz.cz/tween/?page=download ,so dont ask me about it i dont know... i just use the methods

thanks alot!

Help With Debugging
Hi all. I've dl this tutorial and have been tinkering around with it but no end in sight. Every time I test the movie, a page (debugging) opens up on top of the movie. It says "closed". After closing the debugging window, I can test the movie.

However, after testing a few buttons, the window pops up again with the word "closed". I'd appreciate any insight into this glitch. The code is below. Thanks for the time.

Cheers,
BRC

siteSections=["fashionMC", "fineartMC", "portraitMC"];

loadSection=function(){
for(i=0; i<siteSections.length; i++){ myName=siteSections[i];
if (myName!=_global.section){ myName=eval(myName); myName.gotoAndStop("closed"); myName._x=(20*i)+700;
}else if(myName==_global.section){
loadMain(myName);
}}}
loadMain=function(myName) {
myName=eval(myName);
myName.gotoAndStop("open");
var targetX = 325;
var stepVar=4;
myName.onEnterFrame=function(){
var diffX = (myName._x - targetX)/stepVar;
if (diffX<1 ){
delete myName.onEnterFrame; } else myName._x -= diffX; }}

fashionBTN.onRelease=function(){
_global.section="fashionMC";
loadSection(); }

fineartBTN.onRelease=function(){
_global.section="fineartMC";
loadSection(); }

portraitBTN.onRelease=function(){
_global.section="portraitMC";
loadSection(); }

AS Debugging
Hi, im wondering if anyone can help me I have just finished doing a tutorial that is AS based. But I have stumbled across some bugs that I cannot figure out. I am new to AS and underatand the basics of the code but help would be greatful. I would like it if someone could explain why this app. was not working and how the resolved it.

PS. I am uploading from an external source as well, if that helps.

Cheers

Craig

Debugging Help
for some reason, my action script isnt working with scroll panes. I create a scroll pane, assign it instance name scrollPane, and on the next frame, I have a frame action saying this.ScrollPane.loadScrollContent(_root.name); (I use this because it is inside a movie clip which is placed in a movie which is placed on the main stage). _root.name is a string with the file I want to load. The problem isnt with _root.name, I tried replacing it with the actual file name. Any help appreciated. I can't post my fla, its too big, but I would be very willing to email it (500k or so). Thanks

AS3 Debugging...
Hi, I've found some bugs in my project, where it says TypeError: Error #1010 (variable undefined)

But how can I know which one? I'm trying to use the debug tool in CS4 and when the error occurs, I get the position. Then I try to trace the variables in that area, but none are undefined. So how can I know exactly which one it is?

AS3 - Debugging
Hi!

I wonder how could I debug a movie uploaded on an online server what are the best practice for this?

thanks a lot!

Polaco.

Debugging
How to activate the debugger from the browser?

I've enabled the debugging in export settings, Flash app is running, swd is in place, Remote Debugging has beed enabled, however, in the browser, there's no Debugger item in the right-click menu.

Thanks.

Debugging
Hi!

I would like to know how to debug a flash file. I'm used to do that with other programming languages like C, but i don't know much how to use the flash debugger.

Anybody knows any quick tutorial or could give me a small explanation?

thanks! :roll:

Need Debugging Help With SendAndLoad
Hi, I have a class that looks like this:

Connection = function( myForm )
{
this.phpUrl;
this.fields;
}

Connection.prototype.getFieldList = function( table )
{
sender = new LoadVars();
loader = new LoadVars();

sender.table = table;

sender.sendAndLoad(this.phpUrl, loader);
loader.onLoad = this.parseLoadResult;
}

Connection.prototype.parseLoadResult = function( success )
{
if (success)
{
this.fields = unescape(this);

trace( this.fields ); // gives me correct trace results
}
}

And I'm using the class in this way:

c = new Connection();
c.phpUrl = "http://www.somedomain.com/php/somescript.php";
c.getFieldList( "test_table" );

trace( c.fields ); // this gives "undefined"

In other words, when I call trace( this.fields ) inside of the
parseLoadResult function, I get the correct value. However, when I try
to access the fields variable of the Connection object 'c' (c.fields),
I get an incorrect result. I'm fairly experienced at Flash
Actionscripting, but I have never used the sendAndLoad method. I have
used loadVariables in the past. I suspect some scoping issue that I
can't see.

Could someone guide me in the right direction?

Thanks,
D

HELP Please Script Needs Some Debugging
Hi,
I have a movie that is being attached to main movie, in it is a button with the following action:

on (press) {
startDrag (_level1._root.window);
}
on (release) {
winy = _level0.thumbnails.window._y;
winx = _level0.thumbnails.window._x;
stopDrag ();
}

which when I run the movie and drag it around is generating the correct values, I have checked by opening the "list variables" window there I can see :
.......
Variable _level0.thumbnails.window.winy = 17.2
Variable _level0.thumbnails.window.winx = 46.2
.......
back on the main time line i have some buttons loading in various external swf's the action I have on them are variations of:

on (release) {
this.attachMovie("kodak", "window", 10);
window._x = _level0.thumbnails.window.winx;
window._y = _level0.thumbnails.window.winy;
loadMovie ("pic7.swf", "window.container");
_level30.thumbnails.window.container.photo_text = "";
}

But for some reason it won't set the attached movie "window" to correct co-ordinates..????

any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks in advance for any help
andy

LoadVariables Debugging
Hi,

I have a seemingly jinxed flash movie. It calls a number of aspx (.net) scripts and up until last week it was all working fine.

All of a sudden for no reason that I can pin down, two of the scripts stopped working. Now, I hadn't edited the flash movie or the aspx scripts, but they suddenly don't work.

I have tested the scripts independently of the flash movie and they still work fine. I have also tested both the scripts with my flash movie locally, and everything is fine. But, when I upload they don't work. From various experiments it seems to me like these scripts are not even being called anymore.

So is there any way I can tell if for some reason flash can't find the aspx scripts. I can't think of any way to debug this problem since it doesn't happen locally.

PS - I'm using flash 5 and I hope I'm aware of all the usual problems of scope etc when dealing with LoadVariables - after all it did work up to a few days ago.

Debugging Problem?
Can anyone help me with this. I have two errors message when I open my index.html, I think is for debugging syntax, or something like that. Well I hope that someone can help me, cause I don't know how to fix it. I really aprreciate if someone can respond me quickly, and tell me what can I do.

Take care

Remote Debugging
Hello,
I am trying to get the remote debugger to work.

I read through 'Flash help' but don't see the menu item I need to click on.

I do have all the 'enable debugging' stuff checked in the Publish settings as well as the debugging password selected...

'Flash help' says to open the site with your Flash stuff in your browser & right click on the Flash to bring up the Flash menu; there is supposed to be a menu item right above the 'About Macromedia Flash player 7' which reads 'Debugger', but my menu does not have this item at all.

Any ideas as to how to make the remote debugger work..what am i missing??

Thanks much,
D.

Debugging Challenge
i have a portfolio site that loads separate .swf's for each gallery where the thumbnails load an image dynamically and then become buttons. for the "on release" when the big images come in, i am calling first to a preloader that sits in the main movie. i can get the two images i am using for testing (in the people section) to work but only the first time i click them. the second time it won't load the other image. it's as if the preloader sees the image holder MC as full or something im stuck, any thoughts on what might cause this appreciated.

http://www.headwatersdesign.com/testing/vinito.html

i have used a similar "loading external images into a empty MC by way of a preloader" before and it worked.

the files are here

http://www.headwatersdesign.com/testing/files.zip

Debugging Errors?
hey can anyone explain to me why these errors show up when my page loads off the internet. I've looked through the coding and Can't figure it out. Again, I am terrible at action scripting, kinda more of an artist than a scripter. I don't want these to pop up, how can I get rid of them?

This is the site in question:

http://www.geocities.com/silverdrg0n/indexpage.html
contact me on aim if you can:

natethemoogle

LoadVariableNum Debugging
Hi,
I am trying to make livechat with flash and ASP.NET and i have an issue.

Namely, everything works fine when you send some text for the very 1st time writing msg in text file as well as concatenating text to chat text field.
But, after the 1st time all that stop to work.
I checked asp.net page million times and it works flawless. I confirmed this by opening the Web page manually (by passing Flash altogether) in two different browser sessions, it wrote to the text file twice so i conclude that i should focus on debugging the ActionScript.
Just in case i will attach the .FLA file so you could take a look if you want to help

Thanks in advance

[F8] Function Debugging - Please Help
Hi!

The following script works fine:

code:

nextButton.targetClip.onRollOver = function(){
new mx.transitions.Tween(nextButton.redSquare, "_alpha", mx.transitions.easing.Strong.easeOut, 0, 100, 15, false);
}
nextButton.targetClip.onRollOut = function(){
new mx.transitions.Tween(nextButton.redSquare, "_alpha", mx.transitions.easing.Strong.easeOut, 100, 0, 15, false);
}

However, when I put that script in a function, it fails:

code:

activate(nextButton);
function activate(targetButton:MovieClip){
targetButton.targetClip.onRollOver = function(){
new mx.transitions.Tween(targetButton.redSquare, "_alpha", mx.transitions.easing.Strong.easeOut, 0, 100, 15, false);
}
targetButton.targetClip.onRollOut = function(){
new mx.transitions.Tween(targetButton.redSquare, "_alpha", mx.transitions.easing.Strong.easeOut, 100, 0, 15, false);
}
}

Anyone know why?

[F8] Remote Debugging
How to remote debug Flash files in IE . I have enabled remote debugging in debugging window. Also, I have checked debugging permitted in publish settings. I also have debug version of Flash Plaer. BUt when i right click any page in IE, debugging is disabled.

Debugging In Flash CS3
Where in Flash CS3, or on some other place, can I find the info about errors and possible things that cause them?

I tried searching flash help and the Adobe forum but with no luck.

There is a small description of error in the output window in Flash, but somehow I don't think it's enough, at least for us beginners in Flash.

Thnx.

Debugging RemoveEventListener
I want to know whether the EventListener is added or removed from some objects.
Is there any easy way to know that by a trace command or by a debbuger?

Debugging Problems
I have a piece of code that as far as I can tell, looks perfect syntex fine, but the checker says there is stuff wrong. What did I do wrong?

Code:
if (Key.isDown(Key.65) && Key.isDown(Key.32)) {
note_1.gotoAndPlay(1);
if (this.note_1.hitTest(this.target_1)) {
score += 100;
} else {
score -= 100;
}
if (score<0) {
score = 0;
}

Debugging Bandwith
I have a swf (preloader) that loads a couple of other swf's into itself (level 1 and level 2) this works great (thanks in no small part to Billy's great tutorials). One of the swf's is 500k and the other is 2k.

I have tried to use the bandwith profiler in the testing area to view the swf's loading into the preloader, but no matter how low I set it (even 12 bytes / second) it still just dumps the large swf right into the test environment, without letting the preloader do it's thing. Am I doing something wrong?

I'm sure someone has come across this. Is it possible to view what I want in the development environment? It sure would make things easier.

OpenAMF Debugging
Hello everyone. I'm very new to actionscript, but I have some experience with standard java. I'm trying to use flash remoting with J2EE using OpenAMF and ASTranslator. I'm having trouble returning an ASObject back to the Flash client. I can translate a Java object to an ASObject without losing member attributes or methods, but the Flash client will only recieve an object that has no properties or methods. I can't find any good documentation that will help me debug this problem. I would like to see more debugging information on the server side, but I have no idea how this is done. Can anyone help?

Thanks.

Why Am I Getting This Debugging Popup?
I have a movie and when I view it in a browser, for quite awhile, it was giving me a popup dialog with this info...

Where is the Flash MX authoring tool running?
Localhost
Other Machine
Enter IP Address
OK / Cancel

I'd click Localhost>OK and it would run the flash. I double checked my movie and permit debugging was not checked on my publish options. Eventually it stopped doing it. But, now I'm editing the container page in VS Studio.net 03 and the IDE is popping up that same prompt now. Whatever I did, I did accidentally and didn't realize it, so I'm not sure what to go back and change. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

Remote Debugging
Hey there All!

Is there a way to get errors thrown by Flash when it resides on a remote server? When I test the files locally inside the Flash authoring environment it pops a window stating the error using trace("Error loading/parsing LoadVars.");

Is there a way to do this when ir runs within a page? Does it log these errors somewhere I can access it?

I have a banner that uses loadVars to load some images into the banner that is returned by a php script. If I run the php script on its own, on the server, it returns the correct result. If I run the banner, on the server, in the browser caling the swf directly it works but, when I embed this same banner inside a html or php page it ceases to work.

I have tested in FF and IE. I know IE has a new way of handling ActiveX and that is why I tested in in FF. Both give the same result. Any ideas what is going on here?

The html test page is: www.karenimages.com/index_test.html

and the actual SWF is here:
http://www.karenimages.com/includes/...mod/banner.swf

Any and all help appreciated. Thanks!

CS3 Debugging Causes Instability
I am a relatively new Flash CS3 user (3 months). I am maintaining a large code base of ActionScript 2.0, and I am having difficulties with instability which may be caused by debugging.

Debugging appears to cause some kind of instability in the Flash compiler. It is very hard to characterize the actual scenario, but I feel I cannot trust the swfs that I produce to be the _real_ result of the code I am compiling, without testing them, which is tricky because they run as clients to a server and are not easily switched to local xml file input testing. I am debugging inside the IDE and doing remote debugging as well.

I have found that exiting CS3,then deleting the aso folder in here, helps: C:Documents and Settings<your.login>Local SettingsApplication DataAdobeFlash CS3enConfigurationClasses

Some of the time the IDE just crashes (or takes so long to do something that it may as well have crashed), but largely I seem to get a previous version of the swf, or some of the classes/files don't get properly recompiled. The output file appears to be new...it has a new timestamp, but it exhibits old behaviour.

I am not sure that anything can be done about this, or if anyone has advice. I would welcome some sort of reassurance that I am somehow operating the IDE incorrectly! I am an experienced programmer in other fields and this has been a horrible experience - IMO CS3 is not a stable development platform and a poor tool.

Actionscript Debugging HELP
function preloadProgress( event:ProgressEvent ):void {
var loadedPercent:int = event.getBytesLoaded( ) / event.getBytesTotal( ) * 100;
loaderText.text = loadedPercent + "% loaded";
twirlsMask.scaleY = loadedPercent / 100;
}

Anyone knows the problem? It keeps saying:

**Error** Scene=Scene 1, layer=actions, frame=1:Line 12: '{' expected
function preloadProgress( event:ProgressEvent ):void {

**Error** Scene=Scene 1, layer=actions, frame=1:Line 16: Unexpected '}' encountered
}

I've uploaded the file too: http://www.mediafire.com/?8cm0ilmo41z

Debugging Ideas Please
I have a very minor but irritating error on a site I'm building (in AS2) for our parish council - here

I've implemented back and forward buttons which seem to work fine. Hit a few of the main tabs then reverse through them with my back button and all is well. If you also include the Contact tab then hit back a few times it still works ok. But... If you include Contact, put the cursor in the message area and then hit back it's not quite ok. If you have a shaky mouse hand you may think it works ok, but if you keep the mouse pointer stationery over the back button you'll find that you can now only make one backward move at time. Every click leaves the button "up", whereas when working correctly the "over" state is maintained between clicks. The slightest mouse movement will restore the "over" state - no need to roll out.

I don't think the problem is with the back button - this is a straight forward implentation and the problem only shows once the cursor enters one of the text boxes in the Contact mc. It looks as if the back button is loosing focus on release and the slightest mouse movement returns focus. Presumbly the Contact mc is still grabbing focus somehow but it has _visible false, enabled false, and I've included

Selection.setFocus(null);

Suggestions gratefully received.