Error Codes and Their Meanings

Last week, I spoke at WebEdge 4, an Internet developers conference held in Austin, Tx. At the conference I was exposed to quite a number of Shockwave developers. At the end of each session I rounded up questions from the participants on 3 X 5 cards, with the promise that I would cover some of the topics in future columns.

The number one concern of developers I found centered around error messages seen when using Shockwave. So this week I will post a listing of error messages and their meanings. This information has been pulled together from several sources, including Macromedia, Apple, and Microsoft. (If you still have any further questions about the information presented here, feel free to send me e-mail.)

It may be good to note that before you get into the troubleshooting techniques included with this information, try reburning your Director movie. Before you do so, do a "Save As" or "Save and Compact" of the file. This will rewrite and compact the file, leaving behind many bytes of unnecessary information. This technique may resolve any potential problems that Shockwave may have reading uncompacted files.

Avoiding "Error Types 1, 10, & 11" (Macintosh Only)

Crashes of Type "X" on your Macintosh are generally caused by conflicts in memory, sometimes with other applications or third-party extensions. Troubleshoot the problem that you experience by performing one, or a combination, of the following simple tests. These are fast and easy tests to run, and will solve your problem in most every case that we know about. Try them one at a time, so you will know where which extension or setting is causing the error.

• Set Netscape Navigators disk cache to 10 MB, under "Options:Network Preferences." You should be able to run at a lower configuration, but this is a good number to see if tight memory is your problem.
• Zap your Mac's P-RAM, or parameter RAM, by holding down "Command-Option-P-R" upon restart.
• Boost your Preferred Memory to 13 MB or higher for a test. To do this, single click your Navigator 3.0 icon, and use Command-I to increase the Preferred Size to 13000.
• Try disabling Speed Doubler, Speed Copy, and Ram Doubler, if applicable, by disabling extensions holding your Shift key down upon restart.
• Try turning Virtual Memory off.
• Turn off your extensions by restarting with your Shift or Space Bar held down. Shift disables all extensions, Space Bar gives you the option to create custom sets of extensions.
• Rebuild your desktop by restarting with your Command and Option keys depressed, just before the desktop comes up on screen.
• Disable all external SCSI devices. If you are on a PCI Macintosh (7200, 8500, 9500) or PowerBook 5300, get the most recent version of Apple's system enabler.

Errors 201 & 208 (Macintosh/Windows)

These errors mean that your file is damaged by the time that Shockwave has tried to play the file. Typically, we've seen that these errors don't happen locally, only when being played off a Web server. Therefore, reuploading your file, after you re-Afterburn them, is a best bet to ensure that the file you are trying to play is not damaged. Note: If your FTP client allows you to choose what data format to transfer in, be sure to choose "raw data."

Error 108 (Macintosh/Windows)

This memory occurs with Netscape Navigator 3.0 on Macintoshes because it requires more RAM than Navigator 2.02. To stop this error code from appearing, simply allocate more memory to your Navigator browser by choosing "Get Info" from the File Menu.

Error: 70 (Macintosh/Windows)

This error sometimes occurs when running a 68K Macintosh with an Operating System earlier than version 7.1.2. In order to resolve this problem, you must update to 7.1.2 or 7.5.3.

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