Adobe AIR Development

[HotplugS]

I've submitted my app 5 times over the span of more than a month and it has been rejected for one reason: 

Items that need attention: 

- When first run the apps only showing white screen. 

My authoring tools are Flash Builder 4.6 with Flex 4.6 SDK, Flash Pro 5.5 with AIR 3.1 SDK overlay. I used to be able to test run my apps in VMware with the 2.0 PlayBook simulator until it recently expired - because RIM took 3 weeks to tell me my app launches with a white screen. So now I have no choice but to debug it in "desktop" mode in Flash Builder.

But the problem is, when I submitted the app for the first time, my app opens fine and runs as it should everywhere. It ran perfectly on the simulator in VMware. It ran perfectly in my debug tests. Each time it got rejected I was bewildered, but neverless I went to look into the .xml files and made changes wherever I thought could make a difference. The hard part was I didn't know where to change since it ran fine on my computer.

If anyone could point out where I went wrong, I'd gladly admit that I'm an **bleep**. I just want to know what on earth is preventing my app from running on RIM's side.

My manifest info:

Archive-Manifest-Version: 1.1
Archive-Created-By: BlackBerry Tablet OS Air BAR Packager 1.4.2

Package-Type: application
Package-Author: HotplugStudio
Package-Name: Inspire
Package-Version: 1.0.2.9
Package-Architecture: armle-v7
Package-Author-Certificate-Hash: GGv6N8qmF3L3sm51UhTylEOrfXVPLizkN7CSAl0AcrERE21-5DjlHrwFrSwOsiVapaC5faL6XzRBaMzOaBFiOQ
Package-Author-Id: gYAAgPudDPpVeu0bfiquSOFx-2A
Package-Id: gYABgHTJVmmVRgzcw99d1efVAX4
Package-Version-Id: gYACgP3WQefSl-1qwMaXKjOHZP0

Application-Name: Inspire
Application-Description: Inspire
Application-Version: 1.0.2.9
Application-Category: core.media
Application-Requires-System: Tablet OS/1.0.8.0
Application-Development-Mode: false
Application-Id: gYADgHTJVmmVRgzcw99d1efVAX4
Application-Version-Id: gYAEgP3WQefSl-1qwMaXKjOHZP0

Entry-Point-Name: Inspire
Entry-Point: app/air/Inspire-app.xml
Entry-Point-Type: Qnx/Air
Entry-Point-Icon: air/InspireIcon.png
Entry-Point-Splash-Screen: air/InspireSplash.png
Entry-Point-User-Actions: play_audio

Archive-Asset-Name: air/InspireSplash.png
Archive-Asset-SHA-512-Digest: 8ai7nTvn3J7FU4m-nGCgiSkDBsD4jifdVDa9vfljW5hR08Zbm1d3OL75VKIjreFAgRot4W0cWder6mTXBeKccw

Archive-Asset-Name: air/Inspire.swf
Archive-Asset-SHA-512-Digest: U6ELMVklkAXJBKhen-7IULYs5L59wPdOKor2IRvqHAELUv1Bm-Ah1AlkQKLmbdVFptMXRhr0AOZPJylXjvRSXA

Archive-Asset-Name: air/.DS_Store
Archive-Asset-SHA-512-Digest: N6GURKio68xrzvfMFQlFZ2sgMZcnQ7H0ccclSmQmsEJUlPV_pFqJQ9YwhHkWKQKlIs_4c4nbpmiUwcGPgTkchg

Archive-Asset-Name: air/InspireIcon.png
Archive-Asset-SHA-512-Digest: eiUzoVHdZWESsCPdEqZbLDqYr78SEiGNuz7cm2jYr78d9fKl7ipnbAaAQvW_6ZpwFzWG5iaeymYn9T9P8IKFVA

Archive-Asset-Name: air/bar-descriptor.xml
Archive-Asset-SHA-512-Digest: GaTNVS8inU1CHhd3kUr0KhQ4nKTwfuRZua8tOqACWJYpAKWYYkSIxqBcI2_JQKt_PsqDCoq63xSryOWjRc0s3A

Archive-Asset-Name: air/Inspire-app.xml
Archive-Asset-SHA-512-Digest: 3CaiVdrtmI4FFHW9j5ssN1oGp91AK5H1mj43Tf7j1ohBxm8qAxlFDhJwS2S_KSXGWpSCcaxBpSZPccL-eMYb8w

[MSohm]

I tried out the bar file you submitted to App World and also see the white screen issue on startup in both the BlackBerry PlayBook simulator and real device.  Can you describe what your application does on startup?  What is the first screen you are displaying?  

I see that you've added the play_audio action.  Does it use any APIs that would require any of these additional actions?

<!-- <action>access_shared</action> -->
<!-- <action>record_audio</action> -->
<!-- <action>read_geolocation</action> -->
<!-- <action>use_camera</action> -->
<!-- <action>access_internet</action> -->
 <!-- <action>post_notification</action> -->
<!-- <action>set_audio_volume</action> -->
<!-- <action>read_device_identifying_information</action> -->

[steve_web]

If you send me a PM... I'd be glad to take a copy of your signed *.bar file that I can sideload on one of my PlayBooks for testing.

I've helped many others "beta" test their apps and provide some constructive criticism (if you want some ;-)

Cheers,

Steve

[pyth]

running in desktop mode does not really help, you need to have access either to a real device or to vmware. there are a lot of possibilities that could give you a white screen, so what you need to do (at least) is the same thing the RIM guys do: take your signed bar file and deploy it to vmware or a device

possible things

- xml looks fine, I just never saw Entry-Point-User-Actions: play_audio before

- AIR SDK must be set manually when deploying or packaging (don't know how, I just know there was something from AIR 2.0 on. Maybe you're using > 2.0?)

- Stage3d doesn't work

- are you using something else very special?

anyhow..why exactly did VMWare expire? i've been using VMWare Player for over a year now, and it still runs

[HotplugS]

MSohm thank you for your speedy reply.

My app is actually a beautified quote generator with custom animations built using Flash. I plan to add more features in future but for now it just randomly picks a movie clip from an array and play onclick.

The app launches with a background image, and AS code is used to place the app logo (movieclip) and attach event handlers for transition animations on the stage. Basically, on touch the app logo fades out and the main GUI is displayed, which consists of the movieclip to generate a quote, as well as a music controller.

[HotplugS]

steve_web thanks for offering your help, I'll be sending you a PM in a bit!

Pyth, I have deployed the signed .bar to the simulator in VMware before and it runs fine. It expired because I was using the 30-day trial on a Mac (pffft). 

Entry-Point-User-Actions: play_audio is for audio permissions to play sounds I suppose. I just clicked the checkbox during packaging since it made sense to me. What do you mean by setting AIR SDK manually? If it helps I publish my .swf file from Flash Pro and that's where I select the version of AIR SDK that I can use. I had been using 2.6 all along until I did a workaround to overlay 3.1 on it since I was running out of ideas as to why my app wasn't runing. I'm not using Stage3d and not doing anything very special, unfortunately .

[MSohm]

Where does it play the movie clips from?  Does it download them or are they packaged within the app?  Do you store/read anything from the shared folders (i.e. user's video folder)?

[HotplugS]

The movie clips are all in the .swf. And nope I don't store/read any data from shared folders at the moment. If I can get my app to actually run I'll have to consider doing that to prevent the app size from ballooning though.

[MSohm]

The permissions you have should be OK then.

Do you have access to a Windows machine that you could use to run the simulator?  VMWare Player for Windows is free.  You could connect from Flash Builder on your Mac to the VM running on the Windows machine.

[HotplugS]

I'll try to get access to one - I study in a design school and there's hardly a windows machine I can find around here.Thanks for your help though!