[Swftools-common] Warning: Failed to place object at depth n

[Andrew Sinning]

I’ve run into a problem using my pdf-swfs in AIR.  I seem to have found a solution, so I thought I would post it here in case anyone else has similar issues.

 

For the purpose of testing the robustness of my application, I am loading a single-file 500 page pdf-swf into my e-reader.

 

The problem is that when going from page to page, I see that some of the content from a previous page remains visible.  In the debugger I see a long list of warnings:

 

Warning: Failed to place object at depth 1

Warning: Failed to place object at depth 2

Etc.

 

I’ve stumbled upon the following work around.  Before going to a new page, I go the following:

 

//  _mainTimeline is the movieClip of the book

if (_mainTimeline.currentFrame != targetFrameNum) {

var chldCnt:int = _mainTimeline.numChildren;

       for (var n:int = 0; n < chldCnt; n++) {

              _mainTimeline.removeChildAt(0);

              if (_mainTimeline.numChildren == 0) {

                     break;

              }

       }

_mainTimeline.gotoAndStop(targetFrameNum);

}

 

 

// NOTE, it would be short to code the iteration as

 

       while (_mainTimeline.numChildren > 0) {

              _mainTimeline.removeChildAt(0);

       }

 

but I saw the program lockup when I first went to test this, so I added the extra precautionsof only running the loop numChildren times and always checking that there are still children left to remove.  It is probably over-kill, but better safe than sorry.