Trace Output with Flash Player Debugger
This page describes how to install and configure a stand-alone version of Flash Player (FP) Debugger to write runtime trace data to a text file. In addition to writing text produced by the function 'trace()', there is a rich set of internal traces that can also be captured in the trace log.
- Getting stand-alone Flash Player Debugger
- Configuring mm.cfg for trace output
- Locating the output file flashlogs.txt
- Fine tuning the configuration
NOTE: it is possible to log traces with a Debugger version of the Player plugin. To do that, the main difference from these instructions is that a debugger version of the plugin is installed rather than the stand-alone Player. I haven't tried this, so don't know if there are other complications.
- Go to: http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
- Scroll down the page to find the latest "Flash Player...Projector content debugger" for the platform you are working on. E.g. I use "Download the Macintosh Flash Player 11.5 Projector content debugger (ZIP, 15.24MB)"
- Click that link to download the stand-alone FP Debugger.
- Copy the executable (.app on Mac, .exe on Windows, etc) to the location of your choice.
Next, you need to create a file named 'mm.cfg' in the appropriate directory. Instructions for locating the directory for this file on various platforms are described here:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7fc9.html
The following basic settings will log all 'trace()' output, as well as warnings and AVM function calls:
ErrorReportingEnable=1
TraceOutputFileEnable=1
MaxWarnings=50
AS3Trace=1
This page describes where to find the generated log file on various platforms:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WSda78ed3a750d6b8f-4867184d1239f9d0558-8000.html
NOTE: At this point you should be able to fire up the stand-alone FP, load a SWF and read the log file. Give it a try!
On Mac OSX it can be found at "~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/Logs/flashlog.txt"
The official documentation on 'mm.cfg' is at the link mentioned above:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/using/WS2db454920e96a9e51e63e3d11c0bf69084-7fc9.html
However, there are undocumented features of 'mm.cfg' that turn on logging for a wide variety of internal trace data. The following link is to one unofficial description of these settings:
Enjoy!
Mozilla 2019