Also helpful, if you've put your swf and xml in a subdirectory and it's not finding the xml try setting the base url to match:
[swf file="subdirectory/movie.swf" params="base=http://www.website.com/sites/default/files/subdirectory/"]

I tried params="width=50%&&height=50%" but that doesn't work. Any ideas?

Just use: [swf file="file.swf" width="950" height="480"]
;-)

This square bracket replacement is my preferred option. I tried the hack below for the last month and TinyMCE leaves mce_bogus and mce_href attributes throughout all my other edited pages.

And kittens will die, you hacker you!

Surely there's a GUI option to turn off clean-up?

Thank you koppie, it works. It's dirty but it works :(

Is it the same with other editors ?

download the onepixelout http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/audio-player.1.2.3.zip

extract the file and rename it to 1pixelout and put it into the sites/all/module/swftools/shared/

Hi,

I've got the same problem. Did you sort it?

Cheers
Zap

I've just come across this gotcha too - it's a bit of a usability problem, as your users will probably upload the FLV via the upload module and simply want to copy the path - minus your domain name if they're clever enough to use relative links - into the [swf file="/path/to/file.flv"] string.

The two solutions here are either to improve documentation so editors only insert filenames/paths relative to the Drupal files directory root, without a leading '/', or modifying the file to be better able to handle paths relative to the wwwroot.

I've cobbled together a patch file against 6.x-2.5 which does a few things to try and improve reliability, below, but I'm no coder, so it probably needs rewriting, but it has allowed me to specify the file URL as the path from the server root, i.e. with a leading slash: [swf file="/sites/www.kssdeanery.org/files/noodle.flv"].

At the moment, a correct path begins in your files directory, but you CANNOT have a leading slash, so you can't use / to "reset" your URL. e.g. "/foo/bar.flv" won't reset the URL to your base_url.

Anyway, here's how I think you can find out your path - go to:
admin/settings/swftools/handling

... and scroll down to "Media directory url". On my system, I see something like "http://www.example.com/sites/www.example.com/files" - note the lack of trailing slash; what you put in file="filename" is probably simply appended to this path.

Why is this bad? Two reasons I guess; the first is as mentioned above - generally, you want your users to think in terms of relative, portable and recognisable paths. I know that example.com/foo/bar/baz will work anywhere on example.com, and it's easy to make it work from another domain too simply by adding example.com to the start.

The second issue is that this problem is maybe caused by the assumption that Drupal users are comfortable with all their uploads being served from the site's files directory; this isn't always the case, and it's probably better for user interface standards to simply give the user the full path to the media - including the http://, etc (like upload module does on node/edit pages) and let them decide what to do with it.

Lastly, the error message "" should include the path the SWF Tools filter is resolving from the user's input in [swf file="/foo..."], and the directory it is using as a base dir. Even better, have it also explain using an example.

--- swftools.module	2009-12-04 05:06:46.781165283 +0000
+++ swftools_20091204_filepath_fix.module	2009-12-04 05:10:32.997979037 +0000
@@ -424,7 +424,6 @@ function swf($file, $options = array()) 
     $nocache = '';
   }
 
-  
   // FILE
   // Make sure that the file path is $file is valid - we skip this section if $file is already a full url
   // Otherwise we try to expand it to a full url to the local file system or the remote media directory
@@ -434,7 +433,6 @@ function swf($file, $options = array()) 
     
   // If $file isn't a valid url, and if the file isn't going to be streamed, then try to work out where it is
   if (!valid_url($file, TRUE) && !isset($vars->othervars['stream'])) {
-    
     // If we don't have a playlist...
     if (empty($playlist)) {
       
@@ -442,12 +440,15 @@ function swf($file, $options = array()) 
       
       // Then check if files are being sourced locally, and if they are build a file path
       if (swftools_get_media_path()) {
-        $file = file_create_path($file);
+        // Fail: file_create_path is both destructive and obscure: if it doesn't like the user's input,
+        // it will empty it.
+        //$file = file_create_path($file);
+        $file_url = swftools_validate_file_url($file);
       }
     }
 
     // Try to turn $file in to a complete url, either local or remote
-    $file_url = swftools_get_media_url($file);
+    $file_url = ($file_url ? $file_url : swftools_get_media_url($file));
 
     // If $file_url was not generated then file doesn't exist so return $html_alt
     if (!$file_url) {
@@ -529,6 +530,81 @@ function swf($file, $options = array()) 
   return theme('swftools_embed', $embed_markup, $action, $resolved_methods, $vars, $html_alt);
 }
 
+function swftools_validate_file_path($file) {
+  //wrapper function for swftools_validate_file_url($file,TRUE)
+  return swftools_validate_file_url($file,TRUE);
+}
+
+function swftools_validate_file_url($file,$return_path = FALSE) {
+  // Parameters:
+  //  $file         A filename relative to the Drupal files dir (no leading '/'), site
+  //                dir (no leading '/'), or wwwroot (including the leading '/').
+  //  $return_path  Whether to return the absolute path to the file (if TRUE), or just
+  //                a relative URL (i.e. one which will work in an <a href="$file"> anchor,
+  //                e.g. '/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv'
+  // Function attempts to work out a file's absolute path on the server, given
+  // either a filename relative to the Drupal files directory, or a filename
+  // relative to the Drupal install. If a file exists at these paths, return
+  // the web-accessible path; otherwise, return FALSE. Function designed to replace
+  // the file_create_path call in swf() @447-ish which was eating web-safe, perfectly
+  // acceptable filenames.
+  //
+  /* Examples:
+      
+      Drupal at wwwroot:
+        $file:    /sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv
+        Site:     www.example.com/ 
+        Files:    sites/www.example.com/files
+        Call:     swftools_get_file_web_path('/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv')
+        Return:   http://www.example.com/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv if the file exists
+        
+        $file:    sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv
+        Site:     www.example.com/
+        Files:    sites/www.example.com/files
+        Call:     swftools_get_file_web_path('sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv')
+        Return:   http://www.example.com/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv if the file exists
+        
+        $file:    foo_bar.flv
+        Site:     www.example.com/
+        Files:    sites/www.example.com/files
+        Call:     swftools_get_file_web_path('foo_bar.flv')
+        Return:   http://www.example.com/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv if the file exists
+        
+      Subdir Drupal:
+        $file:    /drupal/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv
+        Site:     www.example.com/drupal/ (i.e. Drupal in a subdir)
+        Files:    sites/www.example.com/files
+        Call:     swftools_get_file_web_path('/drupal/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv')
+        Return:   http://www.example.com/drupal/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv if the file exists
+        
+        $file:    sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv
+        Site:     www.example.com/drupal/ (i.e. Drupal in a subdir)
+        Files:    sites/www.example.com/files
+        Call:     swftools_get_file_web_path('sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv')
+        Return:   http://www.example.com/drupal/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv if the file exists
+        
+        $file:    foo_bar.flv
+        Site:     www.example.com/drupal/ (i.e. Drupal in a subdir)
+        Files:    sites/www.example.com/files
+        Call:     swftools_get_file_web_path('foo_bar.flv')
+        Return:   http://www.example.com/drupal/sites/www.example.com/files/foo_bar.flv if the file exists
+        
+  */
+  $file = (substr($file,0,1) == '/' ? substr($file,1) : $file);
+  
+  // Set our prefix - either http://www.example.com/install_directory/ or /path/to/install/root/
+  // Note the trailing slash! :)
+  $prefix = ($return_path ? realpath('.') . '/' : url('<front>',array('absolute' => TRUE)));
+  
+  // Attempt to get the file's complete URL - rudimentary check. Will undoubtedly
+  // need beefing up to handle a wider range of possibilities, but this check should
+  // always remain as simple as possible to debug.
+  $file_absolute = ($file_absolute ? $file_absolute : (file_exists(realpath('.') . '/' . $file) ? $prefix . $file : NULL));
+  $file_absolute = ($file_absolute ? $file_absolute : (file_exists(realpath('.') . '/' . swftools_get_media_path() . '/' . $file) ? $prefix . swftools_get_media_path() . '/' . $file : NULL));
+  
+  // Done. If we have $file_absolute, return it, else return FALSE
+  return ($file_absolute ? $file_absolute : FALSE);
+}
 
 /**
  * Produce finished markup ready for inserting on the page
@@ -806,8 +882,17 @@ function swftools_get_media_url($path, $
   if (variable_get('swftools_check_media', TRUE) && $is_file) {
     
     // If the file doesn't exist, set an error message and return FALSE to indicate failure
-    if (!file_exists($path)) {
-      drupal_set_message(t('Could not display the flash because %path does not appear to exist.', array('%path' => $path)), 'error');
+    //if (!file_exists($path)) {
+    // More file-based-fail, above: $path will almost never resolve to a local filename.
+    // Instead, work out the absolute path instead.
+    if (!file_exists(swftools_validate_file_path($path))) {
+      // Ahh feck it, the file can't be found. Set a warning (not an error - it's
+      // not the end of the world, as the site won't automagically catch fire) and
+      // get on with one's life...
+      drupal_set_message(t('SWF Tools could not display the media content because
+        the file at "%path" could not be located. Please re-check the file path,
+        or see ' . l('drupal.org/node/12345','http://drupal.org/node/12345') . '
+        for more information on embedding media using SWF Tools.', array('%path' => $path)), 'warning');
       return FALSE;
     }
   }

Just to check, have you enabled the [swf ...] insert filter in admin/build/modules, and ticked to enable the insert filter in your input format(s) via admin/settings/filters?

Sounds like you want to put in alternate text/html that will display if flash fails to load... Have you found a solution to this problem using this input filter? I'd love to know. I know you can inject alternate html using the swf() php function call. But I don't want to use php input filter just for this purpose as it is a security issue. Does anyone know if there is a parameter that lets you insert alt text using this input filter? Should this be a feature request?

Did you install flowplayer, as I play all my flvs with this player using swftools