Flash CS5 file not compiling (white screen and flash hangs)

Question

My Flash CS5 Professional worked perfectly fine up until a few days ago when I tried to compile a file I have been working on, to test it, which I had been doing for a while without any problems.

When the flash player screen finally popped up, it was white, and my Flash just hung and didn't respond to anything, which it has been doing ever since, so I have to wait for 15mins for it to compile it, and even then it is INSANELY slow to work with.

I have tried uninstalling Flash Professional CS5, and re installing it numerous times, but still I have the same problem, any ideas on what it could be?

Answer 1

The first thing is to do a sanity check on the system - have you enough free disk space, is it virus free and is there any background app playing up?

Have you recently installed any new software that may be interfering with its normal operation?

Have you rebooted since the problem occurred?

Have you tried different projects - ie a much simpler hello world app and seen if you still have the problem?

When you uninstall things, have you gone and ensured you remove it completely - as well as restarting before before installing again? Apps sometimes have a nasty habit of leaving stuff around and if they are not completely removed then they may continue playing up when reinstalled. For this - you can hunt around program files, user settings directories for Flash items to zap. Then reinstall. It may also have left something in the registry - but I'd advise leaving that well alone unless you really know your way around it as you could hose your machine.

None of this is specific to flash, but is good advice for any misbehaving app.