This post is a list of all Known Issues with the currently available version of EDAP Tools.
It should serve users as a convenient first place to check whether some irregularity they experience when working with EDAP Tools is typical or not, what the causes might be and whether there is a workaround.
We will be updating this post whenever issues are resolved or new ones appear.
List of current Known Issues:
- Auto KeyFrame incompatibility
- Slower KineFlex performance resolved
- Ghosting
- Slow Undo of Convert To Keyframe Advanced
- Shrinking and drifting of Parented elements when snapping resolved
- Comment labels slowing down playback
- Lost SMR info (metadata) while creating Keyframes resolved
- Clipped and incomplete text in most EDAP Tools dialogs resolved
- System Clipboard interference
- System Color Picker in EDAPT Control Panel
- Incorrect number of thumbnails in SGC
- EDAPT Panels reset when changing UI color theme resolved
- Flash CS ActionScript 3.0 Document incompatibility
- Windows System Initialization error
- Missing titles in plugin dialogs resolved
- TransPoser can't generate Thumbnails for new REF symbols resolved
Types of issues
Whilst we make every reasonable attempt to fix all bugs in our plugin code, it is very important to understand that most of the long-standing problems come from bugs or broken functionality in the host application, Adobe Animate.
We have reported all these issues to the Animate team as soon as we have become aware of them, and have tried on multiple occasions to convince them to prioritize fixing them.
Since hardly anything has been addressed in the last couple of years, we decided that we should be transparent with our users and make our reports public.
Recent versions of Animate, starting from 2018 have generally much worse performance, compared to Flash and previous versions of Animate, but are also a mine field of tens and even hundreds of bugs.
Reporting a bug
If you experience unexpected behavior when using EDAP Tools and think that you have come across a bug, please, file a bug-report, describing the steps to reproduce and detailing your version of Flash / Animate, OS and anything else you may consider relevant.
Auto KeyFrame incompatibility
Affected versions: Animate 2020 and newer
Symptoms: When Auto KeyFrame is enabled, it alters the results of many JSFL functions and consequently can break a lot of EDAP Tools functionality, producing unpredictable and erratic behavior.
Reason: The new Auto KeyFrame feature is logically inconsistent with classic Flash / Animate workflows.
Workaround: To be able to enjoy EDAP Tools, make sure you disable Auto KeyFrame.
Slower KineFlex performance
Affected versions: Animate 2018 and newer
Symptoms: Noticeable lag, esp. when dragging the Master Parent.
Reason: Animate has much worse general performance than Flash CS. JSFL performance was crippled by the Animate team once around 2015 after the name change from Flash to Animate and a second time further again in 2018.
We have reported the issue multiple times, urging them to fix it, with zero improvement over the course of more than two years.
Here is an extract from one of the videos which we have submitted in 2018, displaying performance comparison between Animate and Flash CS6.
All our videos are 1080p. If for some reason full HD is not available here, try watching them on youtube.
Workaround: Drag the Master Parent slowly to give the laggy host application time to perform the necessary calculations.
Ghosting
Affected versions: Animate 2018 and newer
Symptoms: After undoing a KineFlex transformation a ghost image of the first frame of the symbol appears.
Reason: Screen refresh bug in Animate.
We have reported the issue in 2018 as soon as it was detected.
Below is an extract from the original bug report we filed.
All our videos are 1080p. If for some reason full HD is not available here, try watching them on youtube.
Workaround: Put a temporary opaque guided box or background on the bottom layer, under the characters. You will not see the ghost image.
Extremely slow Undo of Convert To Keyframe Advanced
Affected versions: Animate 2018 and newer
Reason: Persistent regression, caused by the Animate devs.
This is an extract from our first bug report of the issue. We have since then flagged it multiple times with no improvement so far.
All our videos are 1080p. If for some reason full HD is not available here, try watching them on youtube.
Workaround: When you realize that you have created a stack of keyframes with Convert To Keyframe Advanced by mistake do not use Undo. Use Remove Keyframe [ Shift+X ] instead.
Shrinking and drifting elements when using Layer Parenting Toggle, Smart Magnet Joint or KineFlex on parented layers
Affected versions: Animate 19.2 – 22.0.4
Severity: Critical. Can cause file corruption and data loss
If you have v.22.0.5 or newer you can use LP integration without experiencing matrix degradation.
Reason: Long-standing severe bug in Animate, accumulating over time, due to inaccuracies, caused by rounding.
We have reported this issue to Adobe. It is unknown when and if they will fix it.
[EDIT: Fixed in Animate 22.0.5, released by Adobe on 18 March 2022]
All our videos are 1080p. If for some reason full HD is not available here, try watching them on youtube.
Workaround: Use Layer Parenting with extreme caution. Only toggle it on when your animation is complete to clean up the arcs. Toggling it on and off multiple times can be destructive.
Best would be to avoid Layer Parenting completely and use Clean Up (SMR) instead.
Important notes: March 2022
As more evidence of the destructive nature of the bugs in Adobe's Layer Parenting implementation came into light, we had to take a step to protect our users from damaging or losing their work.
Starting with EDAP Tools v.6.6, Layer Parenting integration into the SMR workflow is disabled by default, and can be enabled only after the user sees all the necessary warnings.
It is still possible to safely use the Layer Parenting Shell as long as one is fully aware of the nature of the bugs, and only does a limited number of clicks and adjustments in any given keyframe after the layers have been parented with Layer Parenting Toggle to clean up the arcs.
Operations with Parented Layers should be kept to the absolute minimum as all SMR tools need to unparent and reparent to be able to access the SMR Core.
A few transformations will be harmless and the degradation will be unnoticeable.
Ideally, all posing and timing should be complete and only then the PL Shell should be toggled on for the layers that need FK cleaning up of arcs.
If Adobe ever fix this severe issue, we will enable Layer Parenting integration by default and make it seamless again.
Please, make sure to watch the video below!
Comment labels slowing down playback
Affected versions: Flash CS6, Animate 2018 and newer
Symptoms: Comment labels slow down Timeline playback. If you have the habit to preview your work by pressing [ Ctrl+Enter ] this does not apply to you and you can enable all comment labels.
Below is our original bug report.
n. tilcheff
June 30 2020 in Bug Discussions
One of our users contacted us yesterday with the observation of some extreme playback sluggishness with Cleaned Up frames.
After some investigation we determined the superficial cause – comment labels that we have been using for years to mark auto-generated keys – are slowing down playback in AA 20.5 ten times or more.
The image below shows the setup:
Here is a video that shows how to reproduce and describes the problem in detail.
It also makes a comparison between the payback in AA 20.5 and AA 15.2
It will be good if this is addressed alongside all other pressing performance issues.
Workaround: In v.6 of EDAP Tools we made comment labels optional and disabled by default. You can enable them from EDAP Control Panel > Miscellaneous.
Lost SMR info (metadata) while creating Keyframes
Affected versions: Flash CC, Animate 2015, Animate 2017, Animate 2018
This issue was introduced in Flash CC. Metadata is wiped out by the default Convert To Keyframe. It affects Smart Magnet Rigs and the work of Smart Graphic Control panel.
Workaround: In affected versions always use Convert To Keyframe Advanced which retains the metadata necessary for Smart Magnet Rigs to function.
Clipped and incomplete text in most EDAP Tools dialogs on Win
Affected versions: Animate 2020 on Windows only
Symptoms: All XUL plugin dialogs in Animate 2020 have text rendering issues. Whole words are not displayed and 2 pixels at the bottom of each line are clipped.
Reason: The issue was introduced with the redesigning of the UI in Animate 2020.
System Clipboard interference
Affected versions: All versions of Flash and Animate
Flash's and Animate's clipboard is exposed to interference by other programs running at the same time in background.
This can lead to errors during EDAPT Objects creation or insertion. Read more…
Workaround: Enable EDAPT Object Compatibility mode from EDAPT Control Panel > Miscellaneous.
System Color Picker in EDAPT Control Panel
Affected versions: Animate 2017 and newer on Windows
Symptoms: If user opens the KineFlex or Layer Color Settings dialogs from EDAPT Control Panel and clicks on a color chip to change certain colors and in this color chip dialog clicks on the color wheel at the top-right to pop the system color picker, it opens behind the dialogs. It is not visible and impossible to bring in focus, which results in a lockdown situation.
Reason: This is a bug in Animate with modal dialogs.
Workaround: To avoid having to kill the program, users can either move EDAPT Control Panel to the side after opening it, before calling the system picker or use the Quick Settings F12 dialog for each of the commands which does not display this issue.
Smart Graphic Control panel (SGC) – incorrect number of thumbnails
Affected versions: Flash 8, CS3, CS5 and CS5.5
Symptoms: The generated thumbnails are either too many or too few and they do not match the content of the Graphic symbol.
Reason: In older versions of Flash, thumbnail generation is affected by the settings chosen for the last exported PNG.
Workaround: Export a temporary PNG by choosing File > Export > Export Image…
In the PNG Settings dialog choose 72dpi and export the picture. Flash will remember these settings.
Refresh the thumbnails in SGC by Ctrl-clicking on the Load / Refresh button (bottom-left).
EDAPT Panels are reset when changing Animate UI color theme
Affected versions: All versions of Animate, only if you have Boiler (older than v.1.7.6) and/or ChaosTheory plugins installed
Symptoms: When user changes the UI color theme via Animate Preferences all SWF panels are reloaded, and data loaded in SMR Panel, Symbol Palette Control and Smart Graphic Control will be lost.
Reason: Incompetent, irresponsible programming by the author of Boiler and ChaosTheory plugins. Their code causes all SWF panels (instead of targeting only his own) to be reset upon theme change.
Workaround: If you need to use Boiler and/or ChaosTheory plugin panels, make sure you do not change UI color theme. When done, close Boiler and/or ChaosTheory panels and restart Animate. After the restart, when said panels have not been opened during the session, you can safely change UI color and EDAPT panels will not be reset.
Flash CS ActionScript 3.0 Document incompatibility
Affected versions: Flash CS3, CS5, CS5.5 and CS6
Symptoms: Multiple issues with masks, tweens and general performance in AS3 documents.
Reason: Adobe implemented AS3 in Flash CS3 quite carelessly. In reality, from CS3 to CS6, Flash offered simultaneously two completely independent engines which ran under a common IDE. AS2 was tested and polished, while AS3 was an on-going work in progress. Many AS3 issues were never addressed, making the ActionScript 3.0 Document type prone to all kinds of problems.
As of EDAPT v.6.9 we ran into too many road blocks and had to drop AS3 Document support for Flash.
Workaround: To be able to enjoy KineFlex for FK/IK posing, switch your Document script setting to ActionScript 2.0.
Go to File > Publish Settings… Flash tab and from the ActionScript version drop-down choose: ActionScript 2.0.
You can also gain quick access to this setting via the Properties panel.
Windows System Initialization error
Affected versions: Potentially all Flash and Animate versions on Windows
Symptoms: Upon opening SMR Helpers panel after a new installation of EDAP Tools, it displays an error message, saying that communication with the Operating System is impossible.
The Padlock button is missing, and EDAPT License Manager cannot be launched, making it impossible to upgrade the Standard (free) version of the tools to EDAPT Premium.
Causes: This is an extremely rare occurrence (the statistical estimate is less than 1 in 5 000) and is not caused by malfunctioning of either EDAP Tools or Flash / Animate, but rather is a manifestation of a deeper problem with the OS or a 3rd party piece of software installed on the user's system, which is preventing the communication between the host and EDAP Tools.
The causes are unknown and can range from unidentified 3rd party software or a combination of programs to corrupted data in the Windows Registry and so on.
Potential solutions: Since the problem is caused by unidentifiable external factors, it cannot be reproduced at will and solved internally.
Windows Reset has been reported to resolve the issue by users who have experienced this initialization error in the past. Click here to read more…
After resetting Windows (as described here), users are advised to install Flash / Animate first, then EDAP Tools. At this stage it will become clear if the tools initialize properly.
As the causes are unknown there is no guarantee that Windows Reset will work in each individual case. If it does not, the next option is a clean install of the Operating System.
In both cases it is advisable that the user makes a full back up and an image of his system before the reset, so that it can be easily restored to its current state, if the reset or re-install do not solve the initialization issue.
Missing titles in plugin dialogs
Affected versions: Animate 24.0 only
Symptoms: Plugin XUL dialogs render without titles.
Reason: This is a newly introduced bug in Animate 24.
The important XUL Title information is just discarded, possibly as an unintended consequence of some changes Adobe devs made to the design of some of their native dialogs.
There is no workaround.
This is a relatively minor issue, which has to be fixed by Adobe with a future update of Animate.
TransPoser can't generate Thumbnails for new REF symbols
Affected versions: EDAP Tools Premium v.7.0.0.0
Symptoms: Attempting to generate Thumbnails for a newly created REF symbol ends with the following error in Output:
At line 136 of file "EDAPT Loader.jsfl":
TypeError: a[0] has no properties
Reason: A bug in EDAP Tools v.7.0.0.0
Fix: If you experience this error, update to EDAP Tools v.7.0.0.0.a or newer.