Hi everyone I am currently maintaining my clients site which is Drupal based, I believe its version 4.6.

I had installed (now its down because it is broken), a flash navigation system which worked on 90% of all the pages, but in 10% it did not show up. In the source code the flash could be seen, but it did not show up on the page, nor show a broken link to the file.

The navigation is contained in a single include file, and that include would work site wide, just not the flash file. I have now reverted the nav back to the image based way it was before and there are no isses on any pages?!

The site as I say has been reverted back to it's original form so that it is usable for visitors, but the code remains identical to the "faulty" flash navigation code which was in place of the image based navigation.

If anyone could help with what this may be here are the URLs of some of the working and non-working pages.

Would an upgrade to 4.7 or perhaps 5.x help, or fix this?

Working URLs (when the nav was flash based)
- http://hyperlite.com/
- http://hyperlite.com/gear?UID=20
- http://hyperlite.com/community

Non-Working URLs (when the nav was flash based)
- http://hyperlite.com/user/3
- http://hyperlite.com/user/5 (or anything /user for that matter)
- http://hyperlite.com/community/downloads

Any help or feedback would be very much appreciated!

Thank you.

Comments

dman’s picture

Probably just your swf paths were relative where they should have been fixed.
embed src="files/swf/nav.swf"
will work fine for your first three links, and break for the next three.

If that's not it, then I imagine your swf is multi-part, and trying to import a sub-movie or XML config file from somewhere after loading. The question is "where is that somewhere?". By default, later loads are made relative to the containing page not to the root flash as discussed here, and that would explain exactly why some pages (with no path) work, and some (with deeper URL paths) don't.

You'll see the evidence by checking out your 404s.
That will show you where the swf was being looked for and failing.

.dan.
How to troubleshoot Drupal | http://www.coders.co.nz/

jessespink’s picture

I have tried every variation of paths to the SWF file and to no avail. Whether they were relative or absolute, none worked, and I really did try every variation for both, even broken ones to be sure.

The problem seems to arise in any URL path that is more than two "directories" deep.
ex. mysite.com/thisWorks - works
ex. mysite.com/this/wontWork - doesn't work

I even tried just using a very basic flash movie with just a shep in one frame and still any URL path more than two levels deep did not display the flash on the page. Despite the flash not being on the page, it did appear correctly in the source code.

I'm baffled!

If anyone knows how to get a flash based navigation file to display more than one level deep in the "directory" structure, your help would be much appreciated.

PS - I did the same tests on a sister site, and found the exact same results. Both sites are 4.6.

Thanks, any help is great!

dman’s picture

Either post a link to the site in question, or check out your 404s as suggested, or at least explain what you mean by "doesn't work".
It's sure to be a misunderstanding about root-relative and page-relative paths, followed by a bit of confusion over context-sensitive url resolution...

.dan.
How to troubleshoot Drupal | http://www.coders.co.nz/

jessespink’s picture

The problem I am encountering, with the site mentioned above, as well as other Drupal sites I have developed is this; When I place flash in a page with a directory URL any deeper than one level deep it does not display on the page, but the source code is displayed "behind the scenes".

Ex. website.com/amazingFlash - works
website.com/directoryTwo/amazingFlash - dosn't work

Does anyone know how to get a flash piece to display in a directory level any deeper than one?

Thanks!

dman’s picture

Link to it correctly - with an URL that begins with a slash.

.dan.
How to troubleshoot Drupal | http://www.coders.co.nz/

jessespink’s picture

Thanks .dan., for your brief and cutting reply to my request for help.

As scathing and unhelpful as it seemed, it got me pointed in the right direction.

For all those interested, the issue was this:

I am using the Adobe JavaScript work around for the display of active content in IE6. As .dan. suggested above, I needed to place, a forward slash in front of the path to my .swf file, once I had done that the issue was not resolved, but I was on the right track. The final issue was the call to the Adobe JavaScript file in the header of my document, which just needed a / in front of the URL path.

Didn't Work -

Worked -

Thanks .dan.

I hope this helps anyone else with similar issues.

dman’s picture

I did explain the longer story in my first reply, providing the base reasons, and as much of a pointer for where to look as was possible from your description of the problem.

And, as you'll probably see now, my second attempt to help was saying pretty much the same thing.

If my third post was briefer - it was because there wasn't much more to add.
It all came down to using relative paths at some stage where fixed, root-absolute, ones beginning with a slash should have been used.

mmkay?

"'Tis the voice of the Jubjub!" he suddenly cried.
(This man, that they used to call "Dunce.")
"As the Bellman would tell you," he added with pride,
"I have uttered that sentiment once.

"'Tis the note of the Jubjub! Keep count, I entreat;
You will find I have told it you twice.
'Tis the song of the Jubjub! The proof is complete,
If only I've stated it thrice."

.dan.
How to troubleshoot Drupal | http://www.coders.co.nz/