This post is already a bit obsolete. I don’t actually use Flashlog.txt anymore in my own development. But it is still useful! Why? Well, in my own workflow it has been replaced with the debugger in Flash Builder or IntelliJ. It’s easy to point the debugger at any web address that is hosting your debugging- enabled swf and get read the traces in the console. Then if you wish to inspect an object with the debugger, you are all set up and ready to go.

However, if you are fortunate enough to have someone on your team who is wrangling assets or doing data entry into the backend, they may not know how to use Flash Builder or IntelliJ’s debugger. Moreover, you may not want to pay for an IDE license for their machine. They’ll need to be able to see the traces to catch malformed XML or misnamed assets, or they’ll be calling you over all the time complaining that the app stopped working (as you most likely won’t have time to make a helpful error-handling UI for them). flashlog.txt to the rescue! Here’s how to set it up:

Using TextMate or another text editor, create a new file. In that file, put the following lines:

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TraceOutPutFileName=/Users/username/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/Logs/flashlog.txt
ErrorReportingEnable=1
TraceOutputFileEnable=1
MaxWarnings=100

Save this file in your home folder ( ~/ ) as mm.cfg

Now run a swf in the debug player. The flashlog.txt file should have been created for you. If not, you can go through the path above and create the missing folders/file.

You can read the flashlog.txt file in any text editor, but the preferred application is Console, which you will find in your Utilities folder. When you open flashlog.txt in Console, you can search and clear your traces, and the log will scroll as new traces happen. Another good solution is to use the command line (on windows, use cygwin) with the tail program. At the prompt, enter:

tail -f /Users/username/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player/Logs/flashlog.txt

Sometimes it takes a while to start working. Restarting the computer helps. Sometimes it still doesn’t work after a restart, but it will eventually. Perhaps you could try breaking your Master Collection DVDs in half, one at a time, within view of the computer, until it starts working*. Of course, before you take such drastic action, make sure that your swf has traces enabled (for example, when you run the swf in Flash CS5, you see the traces in the output window), and that the machine is running the debugger version of Flash Player or the debugging Projector.

You can get the debugging Players/Projectors from this page: http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

There are Flashlog and Flashtracer add-ons for Firefox that could replace Console or tail for you. I haven’t had good luck with them, finding that they are a bit fiddly and occasionally stop working. There are also some AIR apps with the same purpose and with the same results. Granted I haven’t tested these solutions in at least a year so you may get more mileage than I did. Once you get flashlog.txt working in tail or Console, it should be quite reliable. I’ve never had it stop working except when I install an Adobe App and it decides to overwrite my Flash Player with whatever obsolete version it came bundled with.

*Attempt at humor. Don’t actually break your discs.