AS3 hidden treasure in the mm.cfg file. Revealing and documenting many Flash secrets!
*Update: 9 dec 2011*
Using a few of these hidden features, TheMiner let you analyse memory, performances, DisplayList, loaders and a lot more!
When I found this, I just could not believed it.
In the past few weeks I did many articles greatly appreciated by the community: FlashPlayer Security, FlashPlayer Memory, AS3 Array under the hood, Optimized Base64 Encoding. But this one, I think, will rule them all!
I knew for a long time now that flash had undocumented features, little part of flash that could help speed up process (like the memory opcodes) or make interaction easy with right click and that kind of things. But I never thought that FlashPlayer would hide data that could help find bugs, or give better knowledge of how flash is interpreted.
As you may know, The mm.cfg files is located in:
- Windows; C:\Documents and Settings\username\mm.cfg
- OSX; /Library/Application Support/Macromedia/mm.cfg
- Linux; home/username/mm.cfg
This file is interpreted when a Flash Player instance launches a SWF and gives indication of what should or shouldn’t be done.
For example, most people use this file to set tracing parameters:
ErrorReportingEnable=1
TraceOutputFileEnable=1
TraceOutputFileName=c:\logs\flashlogs.txt
MaxWarnings=50
Many other options are specified in the Adobe FlashPlayer Admin Guide… but most of is NOT DOCUMENTED!
There is a LOT of thing to talk about and many cutting edge tools to improve your understanding of flash.
So let’s get into it
The Treasure
The complete list of features of mm.cfg is at the end of the post, but first lets talk about what’s most interesting.
I took my favorite 7 features and made detailed explanation with example for each one so here they are:
TraceOutputBuffered = 1|0
This feature is essential to the rest of all the cool features because they output A LOT of lines in the flashlog
This is a very simple features but it change everything. Did you ever had problem tracing to many information and losing half of it in the flashlog?
Well this is a known bug. If you make a loop of 1 000 000 and you trace the iterator, the flashlog will skip thousand of entries and will take 100% of your CPU while writing to disk.
If you set this variable to true, the traces will be buffered and the write to disk will output multiple lines in one access.
Performance? By default (without this feature), I’m able to trace 3600 line in 6 seconds and my CPU is at 100%.
If I turn the features on, I can trace 1 000 000 lines in the same time! And my CPU is not even near 100%.
AS3Verbose = 1|0
This one is totally crazy.
It traces detailed information about SWF ByteCode structure and Runtime parsing of the bytecode!
You don’t need any software… no special framework to bind in your own SWF… just this one flag!
verify Main/CallFoo() define incoming args @0 arg 0 @1 arg 0 @2 arg 0 @3 arg 0 @4 arg 0 @5 arg 0 alloc local traits @6 alloc 4 @7 alloc 8 alloc CallStackNode @8 alloc 48 param 0 @9 ldop 0(@5) @10 imm 4 debug_enter @11 imm 0 @12 imm 1 @13 lea 0(@7) @14 lea 0(@8) @15 lea 0(@6) save state @16 def @9 @17 imm 165651400 @18 st 0(@6) <- @17 @19 usea @16 @20 st 0(@7) <- @19 @21 def @10 cse @11 @22 st 4(@7) <- @11 @23 cm MethodEnv::debugEnter (@3, @4, @5, @15, @12, @14, @13, @11) @26 ld 164427072(0) cse @11 @27 ucmp @26 @11 @28 jne @27 -> 0 @29 alloc 0 stack: scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] locals: Main@16 0:debugfile "C:\Dev\src;;Main.as" @30 imm 164421632 @31 ldop 44(@30) @32 imm 165988864 save state @33 cm Debugger::debugFile (@31, @32) stack: scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] locals: Main@16 2:debugline 29 cse @30 cse @31 @35 imm 29 save state @36 cm Debugger::debugLine (@31, @35) stack: scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] locals: Main@16 4:getlocal0 @38 use @16 [0] stack: Main@38 scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] locals: Main@38 5:pushscope stack: scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] Main@38 locals: Main@38 6:debugline 31 cse @30 cse @31 @39 imm 31 save state @40 def @38 @41 use @40 [0] @42 st 4(@7) <- @41 @43 cm Debugger::debugLine (@31, @39) stack: scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] Main@40 locals: Main@16 8:pushbyte 3 @45 imm 3 stack: int@45 scope: [global Object$ flash.events::EventDispatcher$ flash.display::DisplayObject$ flash.display::InteractiveObject$ flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer$ flash.display::Sprite$ Main$] Main@40 locals: Main@16 10:returnvalue cse @14 save state @46 def @45 @47 cm MethodEnv::debugExit (@3, @14) @49 use @46 [2] @50 ret @49 @51 bb
AS3Trace = 1|0
This one is also very useful for debugging
It trace every single call to any function that is being called in the SWF at runtime!
It’s like expending the StackTrace to the full software run time.
If you got a crash hard to find, you can turn this on and you will see ALL the last function executed that leaded to the crash.
You can even see Timer Call and Events callbacks!
1255552 AVMINF: MTHD ProfilerAgent/stopProfiling () @ 0x05DA35A0 1255552 AVMINF: MTHD global/flash.sampler::stopSampling () @ 0x0A8C2B20 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.display::DisplayObject/get root () @ 0x0A8C06B0 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.net::Socket/flush () @ 0x0A8C2AD0 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.net::Socket/close () @ 0x0A8C2B70 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.net::Socket/_init () @ 0x0A8C0DF0 1255553 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/stop () @ 0x0A8C2CB0 1255554 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/reset () @ 0x0A8C1B20 1255554 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/get running () @ 0x0A8C1C30 1255554 AVMINF: MTHD flash.net::Socket/internalClose () @ 0x0A8C2D00 1255554 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::EventDispatcher/removeEventListener () @ 0x0A8C2110 1255554 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/stop () @ 0x0A8C2CB0 1255554 AVMINF: MTHD flash.system::System$/resume () @ 0x0A8C2D50 1256675 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/tick () @ 0x0A8C2DA0 1256675 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/_timerDispatch () @ 0x0A8C2FF0 1256675 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::TimerEvent () @ 0x0A8C3040 1256675 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::Event () @ 0x0A8C1AC0 1256675 AVMINF: MTHD Main/OnTimer () @ 0x00B70910 1256675 AVMINF: MTHD global/trace () @ 0x0A8C2170 MyTimer 1258705 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/tick () @ 0x0A8C2DA0 1258705 AVMINF: MTHD flash.utils::Timer/_timerDispatch () @ 0x0A8C2FF0 1258705 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::TimerEvent () @ 0x0A8C3040 1258705 AVMINF: MTHD flash.events::Event () @ 0x0A8C1AC0 1258705 AVMINF: MTHD Main/OnTimer () @ 0x00B70910 1258705 AVMINF: MTHD global/trace () @ 0x0A8C2170 MyTimer
AS3StaticProfile = 1|0
This flag enable Just in Time Compiler (NanoJIT) logs.
It gives detailed information on function conversion, bytecode conversion, MIR (machine-dependent intermediate representation) created, memory used and many others.
At the end of execution, it also output a summary of all bytecode processed (For each opcode you have the number of occurrence, relatives importance, etc)
size profile Main/CallFoo abc 12 mir 880 md 204 1773K mir/s 74K md/s 96% in compile during 854 micros 204 bytes from 55 MIR instructions 61 MD. max span 0 cse 7 dead 0 76 bytes of stack with 5 spills 5 steals 5 remats using 0 times size profile Main/CallFooBar abc 23 mir 1088 md 262 2386K mir/s 85K md/s 96% in compile during 921 micros 262 bytes from 68 MIR instructions 76 MD. max span 0 cse 10 dead 0 88 bytes of stack with 8 spills 7 steals 5 remats using 0 times
verified instructions 3395 verified code size 7441 cpool size 0 cpool int size 1 cpool uint size 0 cpool double size 0 cpool string size 568 cpool namespacesize 12 cpool namespace set size 0 cpool multiname size 75 methods size 20100 instances size 39 classes size 2 scripts size 8 bodies size 82873 18 0 % 36 B 0 % kill 5 0 % 5 B 0 % label 1 0 % 4 B 0 % ifngt 10 0 % 40 B 0 % jump 6 0 % 24 B 0 % iftrue 22 0 % 88 B 1 % iffalse 4 0 % 16 B 0 % ifeq 4 0 % 16 B 0 % ifne 2 0 % 8 B 0 % iflt 2 0 % 2 B 0 % pushwith 93 2 % 93 B 1 % popscope 2 0 % 2 B 0 % nextname 16 0 % 16 B 0 % pushnull 2 0 % 2 B 0 % pushundefined 79 2 % 158 B 2 % pushbyte 6 0 % 19 B 0 % pushshort 9 0 % 9 B 0 % pushtrue 6 0 % 6 B 0 % pushfalse 1 0 % 1 B 0 % pushnan 50 1 % 50 B 0 % pop 21 0 % 21 B 0 % dup 2 0 % 2 B 0 % swap 113 3 % 331 B 4 % pushstring 43 1 % 86 B 1 % pushint 11 0 % 22 B 0 % pushdouble 202 5 % 202 B 2 % pushscope 1 0 % 2 B 0 % pushnamespace 2 0 % 6 B 0 % hasnext2 143 4 % 382 B 5 % newfunction 60 1 % 216 B 2 % callproperty 102 3 % 102 B 1 % returnvoid 9 0 % 9 B 0 % returnvalue 13 0 % 26 B 0 % constructsuper 9 0 % 30 B 0 % constructprop 49 1 % 173 B 2 % callpropvoid 4 0 % 8 B 0 % newobject 5 0 % 10 B 0 % newarray 2 0 % 2 B 0 % newactivation 45 1 % 114 B 1 % newclass 391 11 % 1011 B 13 % findpropstrict 119 3 % 290 B 3 % findproperty 96 2 % 197 B 2 % getlex 158 4 % 432 B 5 % setproperty 18 0 % 36 B 0 % getlocal 18 0 % 36 B 0 % setlocal 2 0 % 2 B 0 % getglobalscope 9 0 % 18 B 0 % getscopeobject 365 10 % 938 B 12 % getproperty 174 5 % 443 B 5 % initproperty 2 0 % 4 B 0 % getslot 102 3 % 204 B 2 % setslot 6 0 % 6 B 0 % convert_i 11 0 % 11 B 0 % convert_u 11 0 % 11 B 0 % convert_b 6 0 % 14 B 0 % coerce 3 0 % 3 B 0 % coerce_a 7 0 % 7 B 0 % coerce_s 1 0 % 1 B 0 % negate 2 0 % 2 B 0 % increment 6 0 % 6 B 0 % not 6 0 % 6 B 0 % add 4 0 % 4 B 0 % subtract 1 0 % 1 B 0 % multiply 5 0 % 5 B 0 % divide 1 0 % 1 B 0 % lshift 3 0 % 3 B 0 % rshift 2 0 % 2 B 0 % bitand 2 0 % 2 B 0 % bitor 6 0 % 6 B 0 % equals 2 0 % 2 B 0 % lessthan 2 0 % 2 B 0 % greaterequals 1 0 % 1 B 0 % increment_i 275 8 % 275 B 3 % getlocal0 49 1 % 49 B 0 % getlocal1 36 1 % 36 B 0 % getlocal2 17 0 % 17 B 0 % getlocal3 13 0 % 13 B 0 % setlocal1 14 0 % 14 B 0 % setlocal2 11 0 % 11 B 0 % setlocal3 23 0 % 144 B 1 % abs_jump 54 1 % 330 B 4 % debug 168 4 % 456 B 6 % debugline 19 0 % 50 B 0 % debugfile
AS3DynamicProfile = 1|0
This one give dynamic information about the opcodes being called and gives statistic for each.
The statistics include count, cycles, %count, %times and CPI
My question is: Having access to the CPI (Cycle per instruction) will we be able to conclude all
fights between what operation is faster that the others? Cycle counts does not lies (on the same platform…)
* Request for Jackson Dunstan: Wanna work on that? 🙂 *
But there is a problem with this one, it crash all the time.
My guess is it can’t process “Flash Object” like Movieclip, Event, and all the other and only support operation valid in tamarin.
total count=278 cycles=35508249 avg CPI=127727 user 1.9% gc 0% decoder 97.7% verifier 1.6% codegen 0.2% count cycles %count %time CPI opcode ----- -------- ------- ------- --- ------ 2 34714742 0.7 97.7 17357371 decode 211 602237 75.8 1.6 2854 verifyop 6 89138 2.1 0.2 14856 codegenop 3 78305 1.0 0.2 26101 newclass 7 4813 2.5 0.0 687 findpropstrict 6 3922 2.1 0.0 653 setslot 4 3260 1.4 0.0 815 initproperty 4 2724 1.4 0.0 681 getproperty 9 1859 3.2 0.0 206 getlocal0 4 1639 1.4 0.0 409 verifypass 2 1190 0.7 0.0 595 returnvoid 1 755 0.3 0.0 755 pushnamespace 3 745 1.0 0.0 248 abs_jump 2 550 0.7 0.0 275 findproperty 5 527 1.7 0.0 105 pushscope 1 403 0.3 0.0 403 pushnull 2 382 0.7 0.0 191 pushbyte 1 331 0.3 0.0 331 popscope 1 331 0.3 0.0 331 pushundefined 2 238 0.7 0.0 119 pushint 2 158 0.7 0.0 79 pushdouble
LogGPU = 1|0
This enable logging GPU information about current SWF while it runs.
Use GPULogOutputFileName = [path] to specify where to output that log.
Use DisplayGPUBlend = 1 to display the little green square while GPU runs
use ForceGPUBlend = 1 (At your own risk) to force GPU event if your videocard is not officially listed as valid for Flash GPU.
[GPU-BLEND] SUCEEDED to create D3D device [GPU-BLEND]0x1161000 MONITOR/DEVICE SWITCH, old=0x0, new=0x18fd00 [GPU-BLEND]0x1161000 Started (wMode=GPU) on device 10de 402 (6.14.11.9062) NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT mem:free=718, used=0 [GPU-BLEND]Begin render aa=4. Free TextureMem=712 Mb, Used = 5 [GPU-BLEND]Using 0x13b7080 as RT vp= 0 0 800 600, aa = 4 [GPU-BLEND]Clearing buffer 0x13b7080 { 0 0 800 600 } with color ffffffff [GPU-BLEND]Filling border & background on 0x13b7080 3 3 11 11 with bo:ffffffff, ba:ff00ff00 [GPU-BLEND]Using 0x13b7080 as RT vp= 0 0 800 600, aa = 4 [GPU-BLEND]End render [GPU-BLEND]0x1161000 Started (wMode=GPU) on device 10de 402 (6.14.11.9062) NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT mem:free=716, used=0 [GPU-BLEND]Begin render aa=4. Free TextureMem=712 Mb, Used = 5 [GPU-BLEND]Using 0x11b7080 as RT vp= 0 0 800 600, aa = 4 [GPU-BLEND]Clearing buffer 0x11b7080 { 0 0 800 600 } with color ffffffff [GPU-BLEND]Filling border & background on 0x11b7080 3 3 11 11 with bo:ffffffff, ba:ff00ff00 [GPU-BLEND]Using 0x11b7080 as RT vp= 0 0 800 600, aa = 4 [GPU-BLEND]End render
PreloadSwf?flashvar1=value&…
This is mainly used by the FlashBuilder Profiler. When you launch a SWF profiling, FlashBuilder add this line to mm.cfg to make it run another SWF before the one you profile.
The default file is: C:/Documents and Settings/{USER}/My Documents/Flex Builder 3/.metadata/.plugins/com.adobe.flash.profiler/ProfilerAgent.swf?host=localhost&port=9999
The profiler agent is a SWF that use the as3 sampling classes to collect information and send them all over a socket connection to FlashBuilder.
FlashBuilder is only interpreting that data received from the SWF
By changing localhost by any other machine name you can connect to a remote FlashBuilder Profiler. On the Remote profiler you need to check the “wait for application” box and then start the local SWF on the other machine.
This one is just crazy powerful: See: One SWF to rule them all! and New visual Profiler
The Full List
undocumented features will be written in bold
AllowUserLocalTrust = 1|0
Lets you prevent users from designating any files on local file systems as trusted.
AS3AllocationTracking = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile Allocation in FlexBuilder anymore)
AS3AutoStartSampling = 1|0
Specify if we need a feedback before starting the profiler or we start right away.
AS3CSE = 1|0
CSE is an acronym for “Common Subexpression Elimination”. It seems plausible that these may be employed by the Flash virtual machine to optimize the byte-code before executing
AS3DCE = 1|0
DCE is an acronym for “Dead Code Elimination”. It seems plausible that these may be employed by the Flash virtual machine to optimize the byte-code before executing
AS3DynamicProfile = 1|0
When enabling this (you might crash half the time) the flash player is going to collect precious profiling information on opcodes used in the Swf (count/Time/%/Cycles)
AS3MIR = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, FlashPlayer won’t keep information on Machine-dependant intermediate representation – NanoJIT)
AS3Sampling = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile in FlexBuilder anymore)
AS3SSE = 1|0
*My guess is it turns on and off SSE optimization
AS3StaticProfile = 1|0
Information Generated by NanoJit (just in time compiler used in Tamarin), including a lot of statistic on code conversion, time to process and memory use
AS3Trace = 1|0
If turned on, ALL function called (at runtime) will be outputed in the flashlogs!
You should always use in conjonction with TraceOutputBuffered=1
AS3Turbo = 1|0
??
AS3Verbose = 1|0
Trace detailed information about SWF ByteCode structure and Runtime parsing of the bytecode!
AssetCacheSize=X
Lets you specify a hard limit, in MB, on the amount of local storage that Flash Player uses for the storage of common Flash components.
AutoUpdateDisable = 1|0
Lets you prevent Flash Player from automatically checking for and installing updated versions.
AutoUpdateInterval = X
Lets you specify how often to check for an updated version of Flash Player.
AutoUpdateVersionUrl = [URL]
Lets you specify a precise server to look up for new flash version
AVHardwareDisable = 1|0
Lets you prevent SWF files from accessing webcams or microphones.
CodeSignLogFile
??
CodeSignRootCert = 1|0
??
Convert8kAnd16kAudio = 1|0
??
CrashLogEnable = 1|0
??
DisableAVM1Loading = 1|0
If turned on, no SWF of version 8 and earlier can be loaded.
DisableDeviceFontEnumeration = 1|0
Lets you prevent information on installed fonts from being displayed.
DisableIncrementalGC = 1|0
Lets you enable/disable Garbage Collector Incremental policies (more info on the GC)
DisableMulticoreRenderer = 1|0
Lets you turn off multiple core rendering
DisableNetworkAndFilesystemInHostApp = 1|0
Lets you prevent networking or file system access of any kind.
DisableProductDownload = 1|0
Lets you prevent native code applications that are digitally signed and delivered by Adobe from being downloaded.
DisableSockets = 1|0
Lets you enable or disable the use of the Socket.connect() and XMLSocket.connect() methods.
DisplayGPUBlend = 1|0
If set to 1, it will prevent GPU use even if the SWF context is setted to use GPU and your card support it.
EnableIncrementalValidation = 1|0
??
EnableLeakFile = 1|0
??
EnableSocketsTo = [address]
Lets you create a whitelist of servers to which socket connections are allowed.
EnableSocketsTo = localhost.localdomain
EnableSocketsTo = 127.0.0.1
EnforceLocalSecurityInActiveXHostApp = 1|0
Lets you enforce local security rules for a specified application.
ErrorReportingEnable = 1|0
Set the ErrorReportingEnable property to 1 to enable the debugger version of Flash Player to write error messages to the log file.
FileDownloadDisable = 1|0
Lets you prevent the ActionScript FileReference API from performing file downloads.
FileUploadDisable = 1|0
Lets you prevent the ActionScript FileReference API from performing file uploads.
ForceGPUBlend = 1|0
Force GPU blending even if you video card is not officialy supported (At your own risk!)
FrameProfilingEnable = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile Frames in FlexBuilder anymore)
FullScreenDisable = 1|0
Lets you disable SWF files playing via a browser plug-in from being displayed in full-screen mode.
GCStats = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile GC in FlexBuilder anymore)
GPULogOutputFileName
Lets you specify the output file for the GPU informations
HeapProfilingAS3Enable = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile Heap in FlexBuilder anymore)
LegacyDomainMatching = 1|0
Lets you specify whether SWF files produced for Flash Player 6 and earlier can execute an operation that has been restricted in a newer version of Flash Player.
LocalFileLegacyAction = 1|0
Lets you specify how Flash Player determines whether to execute certain local SWF files that were originally produced for Flash Player 7 and earlier.
LocalFileReadDisable = 1|0
Lets you prevent local SWF files from having read access to files on local hard drives.
LocalStorageLimit = X
Lets you specify a hard limit on the amount of local storage that Flash Player uses (per domain) for persistent shared objects.
LogGPU = 1|0
Lets you specify if you want to output debug GPU log
MaxWarnings = X
The default value of the MaxWarnings property is 100. After 100 messages, the debugger version of Flash Player writes a message to the file stating that further error messages will be suppressed.
OverrideGPUValidation = 1|0
Overrides validation of the requirements needed to implement GPU compositing.
OverrideUserInvokedActions = 1|0
??
PolicyFileLog = 1|0
Enables the logging of policy file messages.
PolicyFileLogAppend = 1|0
Set the PolicyFileLogAppend property to 1 to save previous policy file log entries
PreloadSwf?flashvar1=value&…
Lets you specify a SWF to be loaded before the main swf.This is the profiler agent, a little flash app (ProfilerAgent.swf) that connect to the FlexBuilder Profiler via socket (localhost:9999).
FlexBuilder is only interpreting that data.
PreloadSwf=C:/Documents and Settings/{USER}/My Documents/Flex Builder 3/.metadata/.plugins/com.adobe.flash.profiler/ProfilerAgent.swf?host=localhost&port=9999
By changing localhost by any other machine name you can connect to a remote FlashBuilder Profiler. On the Remote profiler you need to check the “wait for application” box and then start the local SWF on the other machine.
ProductDisabled = 1|0
Creates a list of ProductManager applications that users are not permitted to install or launch.
ProductDownloadBaseUrl
??
ProfileFunctionEnable = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile function in FlexBuilder anymore)
ProfilingOutputDirectory = [path]
Specify where to save the ProfilerData file
ProfilingOutputFileEnable = 1|0
Specify if we want to create a file containing all the profiler data (flashprof_1265745253708.dat)
RendererProfilingEnable = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile in FlexBuilder anymore)
RTMFPP2PDisable = 1|0
Specifies how the NetStream constructor connects to a server when a value is specified for peerID, the second parameter passed to the constructor.
RTMFPTURNProxy = 1|0
Lets Flash Player make RTMFP connections through the specified TURN server in addition to normal UDP sockets.
ScriptStuckTimeout = X
Lets you specify the time after what the timeout (too much time running a script) exception will popup
SecurityDialogReportingEnable = 1|0
Lets you specify whether the Security dialog should be visible or not.
SuppressDebuggerExceptionDialogs = 1|0
Lets you specify whether the Error dialog should be visible or not.
ThirdPartyStorage
Lets you specify whether third-party SWF files can read and write locally persistent shared objects.
TraceOutputBuffered = 1|0
Specify the flash player to use a buffer before writing to disk. If you had problem when tracing tousands of lines and line were skipped, this solve the thing. It’s also a lot faster (1000000 trace in 7 seconds instead of 3200 trace in 7 sec!)
TraceOutputFileEnable = 1|0
Set TraceOutputFileEnable to 1 to enable the debugger version of Flash Player to write trace messages to the log file.
TraceOutputFileName= [path]
(Before Flash 9) Sets the location of the log file. By default, the debugger version of Flash Player writes error messages to a file named flashlog.txt, located in the same directory in which the mm.cfg file is located.
UseBrokerProcess = 1|0
Lets you specify if you want to use elevated privileges or not (See the FlashPlayer update)
WindowlessDisable = 1|0
Lets you disable Floating Flash (ex: Ads)
Conclusion
This whole thing opens a new playground for hardcore programmer like me.
A lot can be done with this new information:
- Custom Profiling tool using AS3Verbose and AS3Trace modes
- Custom Profiling tool using .dat generated by FlashProfiler
- Automatic Code performance warning using NanoJIT structure analysis
- Guide to performance using CPI (cycle per instruction)
- Mapping of profiler using the PreloadSwf features (instead of localhost put any other host that have a valid profiler)
I didn’t have time to work extensively on each features and I may have interpreted incorrectly certain things.
If it’s the case please tell me and I’ll modify this post. If you do test or benchmark using this post information please post them as comment here and I’ll add the benchmark later in the post.
By the way, I am now on twitter: jpauclair
References
Adobe MM.cfg documentation
Adobe Flash Player Admin Guide (containing mm.cfg information)
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- SOS Flash Log Tail – Kristof Neirynck
- links for 2010-02-11 « Mandarine
- What Else You Should Know About Flash/Flex at Jozef Chúťka's blog
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- Секреты файла mm.cfg « Flash Team
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- Weekly Digest for February 16th — Hello. My name is Václav Vančura.
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- One SWF to rule them all : The Almighty PreloadSWF « jpauclair
- AS3 Conversion
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- Flash Assembler (not ByteCode) : And you thought it couldn’t get faster « jpauclair
- AZ13 >> Mit Flash Player Einstellungen arbeiten: mms.cfg
- Flash CS5 output messages: AS3Trace « Flashscript.biz
- Links: AS3 code to use « Sergein Info Blog
- jpauclair.net: 6 Months – Articles recap. « jpauclair
- mm.cfg revealed! | sephiroth.it - flash world
- Some neat mm.cfg options | http://piotr.buda.li
- The power of mm.cfg at distriqt // labs
- Profiling Flash Player Rendering - ByteArray.org
- Sweet hidden debug information… « Avocado Blog
- Swf.hu 2.0 – flash és webfejlesztés » Heti link gyűjtemény 2
- Philippe.me » AS3 – Hacking PreloadSwf for fun and profit
- Flash security: Protecting against PreloadSWF (SWF Hijacking) « jpauclair
- Blimey! « Deceptive Resolution
- Parameters in Flash configuration file mm.cfg « ZhengPing's web site (consturcting…)
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That’s awesome Jean, thanks for sharing!
Here is some more official info on the PreloadSwf tag and custom profilers:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/sampler/package.html
I’m guessing OverrideUserInvokedActions just bypasses the FP security model requirements for user-initiated events such as entering fullscreen mode.
Congratulations on the blog and your excellent technical posts 😉
Very useful, thanks for sharing
This is amazing, thanks for sharing! I can definitely see custom profiling tools coming up (FDT, hint hint..)
that’s a hell lot of hidden features 🙂
thanks for all that!!
How weird ?
I don’t have any mm.cfg file on my system –
Is this really up-to-date with FP10 and CS4 ?
As well It’s hard to believe to found this file on a “macromedia” folder.
Any tips ?
Sounds like you have the regular Flash player rather than the Debug version. Go to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/192/tn_19245.html and the first Flash animation will display Content Debugger ActiveX Player if you have the correct player. If not, it will display Release ActiveX Player. In that case, go to http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html and download the debug player (uninstall your regular player first).
mk3H92 I’m impressed! You’ve managed the almost impossible.
Great post,
Big thanks for all the infos provided.
Nice one!
Thanks for this 🙂
Unbelievable!
Thanks!
Wow, very nice finding. Beau boulot.
Question about TraceOutputBuffered = 1|0
It does not seem to work with plugins for FlashDev like FDtracer or FlashLog. I’m getting a Warning about the the file being used by another proccess…
Any idea on how to turn on TraceOutputBuffered and still be able to access it at runtime from a log viewer?
I honestly didn’t test with those environment, but I ‘m sure the guys at flashDevelop will work on that: http://tinyurl.com/ylfq8zw
Wow, a treasure trove indeed! How did you find all of these? As per your request regarding AS3DynamicProfile, I think I will take a look. I’ll certainly let you know what I find.
Thanks for the documentation!
To find treasures, you need to dig!
Haha 🙂
I think these might be wrong:
AS3CSE = 1|0
AS3DCE = 1|0
Enable/Disable Profiling information (if turned off, we can’t profile in FlexBuilder anymore)
CSE and DCE are acronyms for common compiler optimization techniques. It seems plausible that these may be employed by the Flash virtual machine to optimize the byte-code before executing. If this is the case, though, I can’t guess why this would affect your ability to profile. So I might be crazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_subexpression_elimination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_code_elimination
Thanks a lot, this make a lot of sense! I updated the post.
I didn’t had that much time to try everything but still… thanks!
this is for very advanced users, but I guess some people will always dig for ‘undocumented stuff’ 🙂
Absolutely incredible stuff!! How, may I ask, did you discover all of this awesomeness?
Excellent post.
AS3Turbo 🙂
ProductDownloadBaseUrl seems like nice target for malware authors
Thank you!
~o__O~
So much properties!
TraceOutputBuffered is an interesting one; it would appear that it locks the flashlog so that only one instance of the player can write to it at a time; for me this meant if I had a browser open with a Flash App in one of the tabs, my standalone debug player would no longer output to the tracelog.
ProductDownloadBaseUrl:
I’ll wager that this sets the base url for loading the air.swf when installing/updaing AIR apps from a Flash badge… among other things.
Awesome information, thanks for the explanation- especially the first two you introduced: TraceOutputBuffered & AS3Verbose
Already helping me work better =)
How did you find this stuff out? I ask because the list of mmcfg flags will probably change over time, and knowing your source would let me keep an eye on it when the player’s updated.
Wow, these are sweet. I wonder if some of these (particularly AS3StaticProfile) could be combined with a unit testing framework to get very some very detailed low level optimizations going where needed.
Wow! very nice! A true wealth of information!
Can a swf find out about the mm.cfg info somehow at run time?
Merci !!
Thank you very much for this compilation. I found it very useful.
However, for the longest time, I was stumped by the fact that the log file was not being created even though I had the proper settings in the mm.cfg.
Then I came across a post (http://flashgamedevblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/debugging-flash-player-9-with-logfile.html) which said that Flash Player 9 ignored any customization of the log file location. Sure enough the file was there (Windows 7: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\Logs).
Thanks again
Are some of these features possible in AS2? i tried AS2Trace = 1 but it only logs my traces, i don’t see any list of functions
Is this incorrect?
DisplayGPUBlend = 1|0
If set to 1, it will prevent GPU use even if the SWF context is setted to use GPU and your card support it.
You’ve written above that it displays a green box when it’s being used… but below you write that it disables it. Are you sure it’s not supposed to be DisableGPUBlend along with DisplayGPUBlend?
Thanks for sharing some great info
Realy heavy! Maybe sometimes usefull!
So was anything found about the crash that occurs when using AS3DynamicProfile ? I could _really_ use that function, but the debug player (started from FlashDevelop) crashes on startup when that flag is set.
Wow, wow, wow, wow … This post rule !!!
Nice
Hi Sankaran,
I looked inside my windows XP SP3 After installing Flash Professional CS5 and I did not file the mm.cfg
I then did a windows search for *.cfg and no luck. Any ideas on how do I get Flash CS5 professional to generate this mm.cfg file automatically
I think that it is not generated by default anymore. Still you can create it by hand in your DocumentsAndSettings/ProfileName/mm.cfg
thanks for the post man. I’ve updated my flash player 10 debugger today and it started crashing/ responding slowly. I’ve modified the mm.cfg file and it’s working properly now. but I’m a facing a problem now. I’m not able to see any server communication details(php echos) in the output console. Is there any setting for this? Any help would be much appreciated.
cheers.
Does anyone see anything in this list that will suppress warning messages, but not error messages? I’ve looked, but didn’t see anything, but my little brain doesn’t quite grasp everything in this list.
I get the warning: “Warning” ‘flash has no property ‘prototype’ all the time – often multiple times per file – and it’s driving me crazy.
Josh have you found a solution to this problem yet? I am having it on every Mac that I set up and I can’t believe that people are just ignoring it.
i’m on mac osx snow leopard. Latest flash debug player installed and no mm.cfg file on /Library/Application Support/Macromedia !!! the file is not present on my hard drive. Does someone encountered the same problem ? Thanks.
Here’s some info on CrashLogEnable from Adobe:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/839/cpsid_83973.html
I freshly installed a CS5 and get several traces “[..] AVMINF: MTHD [..]”. Unfortunately I cannot find a way to disable them. The mm.cfg file was not located on my windows xp under “C:\Documents and Settings\$myuser” so i created one, added the var “AS3Trace=0” and restarted flash but still traces. Please advise… 🙂
the latest flash debugger caused a HUGE problem for me! (I’m on mac osx 10.6.3)
I was not able to turn off the logging of all functions by adding AS3Trace = 0 to the mm.cfg file (I added it but it did not work)
I had to revert back by downloading adobe’s flash debugger archive.
the first thing you need to do is uninstall flash player by downloading adobe flash player uninstaller: http://www.wargeek.net/uninstall-flash-player-windows-mac-adobe-flash-player-uninstaller.html
next get adobe’s debugger archive here: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html
Flash Player 10 (debugger versions) (141 MB)
MAKE SURE YOU USE THE DEBUGGER PLAYER IN THE FOLDER: 10r32_18. I went through several folders working my way back in versions to find a debugger that:
a. didn’t have the excessive trace problem
b. didnt unpack another dmg file which in turn unpacked another dmg.zip….. ad infinitum
unpack: flashplayer10r32_18_ub_mac_debug.dmg.zip
and then run: Install Flash Player 10 UB.dmg
that should fix the problem
Hi,
Am using flash cs5 trail version,and went through your post as per that i searched
mm.cfg but was not able to find it.Please let me know where can i find that am using Windows XP.Thanx in advance.
I also had problems locating the mm.cfg file but I found it in the root directory of the folder which is assigned by the domain controller. So it was not in the “My Documents” folder or somewhere else
To all the over commentors. Blogs could be a lot much better to read when you can keep Your feedback uncomplicated and also to the stage. No-one likes to learn giant feedback when the idea can be conveyed utilizing a not as long comment
I am not sure if this is related, but below is a snippet of what I get when I first open up a file I have been working on. At first it only appeared when I tested the movie and only on the first time I did it. It severely slowed my computer down.
Running CS4 on an HP Intel Xeon CPU 3.06GHz (2 processors) 2 GB RAM
Is this something useful?
I am not sure how it was even turned on?!
812630 AVMINF: MTHD global$init ()
812638 AVMINF: MTHD Object$cinit ()
812639 AVMINF: MTHD Class$cinit ()
812640 AVMINF: MTHD Function$/emptyCtor () @ 0x05D40000
812641 AVMINF: MTHD Function$cinit ()
812642 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812643 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812644 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812645 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812645 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812647 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_dontEnumPrototype () @ 0x05D40160
812648 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_setPropertyIsEnumerable () @ 0x05D40380
812649 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_setPropertyIsEnumerable () @ 0x05D40380
812650 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_setPropertyIsEnumerable () @ 0x05D40380
812651 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_setPropertyIsEnumerable () @ 0x05D40380
812652 AVMINF: MTHD Function$/emptyCtor () @ 0x05D40000
812653 AVMINF: MTHD MethodClosure$cinit ()
812654 AVMINF: MTHD Namespace$cinit ()
812655 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812656 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812657 AVMINF: MTHD Class/get prototype () @ 0x05D40120
812658 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_dontEnumPrototype () @ 0x05D40160
812659 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_setPropertyIsEnumerable () @ 0x05D40380
812660 AVMINF: MTHD Object$/_setPropertyIsEnumerable () @ 0x05D40380
812660 AVMINF: MTHD Boolean$cinit ()
in mm.cfg:
AS3Trace=0
There you go 😉
Thanks for your quick reply.
Is this the same for Windows 7?
Great stuff. Nice work.
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Hi,
I have a huge application in AS3 and facing a crash problem since some time. I tried using AS3Trace=1 in mm.cfg with and without TraceOutputBuffered=1, but I cannot see all the logs in flashlog as the file size keeps increasing and goes in GBs over time, causing my computer to slow down. Can you please advice as how do I use it properly in order to investigate my crash problem.
WONDERFUL!!! thanks a lot! I’d like to ask: I can’t get any flash debug player version more than 10.1 (10.3.181.23 is actual now) to work – it plays flash content but doesn’t debug flashlog. I’ve tried many versions but everytime I must return back to 10.1 version that works.
Does anyone know where is the problem? Has anyone same problem?
awesome article, need to get deeper into it but I am wondering about the phrase from first paragraph about undocumented ability to enable right mouse button in Flash Player. Have anyone any clues?
Hi good publish , Thanks for sharing this info
Hi i try the parameter ScriptStuckTimeout to setup to 6000 but it don’t work. HAve you tried this one? I hvae the same error #1502 on 60 secods
Thanks for the list and the explanation of all those parameters.
I’ve digged into the current version of the debug Flash Player (Linux, 32-bit, 11.2.202.233) and found a couple of changes. Some parameters are missing (not supported … but this might be only due to the platform differences … I guess you analyzed the Windows version) and a few were added.
If somebody is interested, you can take a look at it here:
http://pastebin.com/d13D01gG
I’m not sure whether all of these actually work. I just grabbed from the Flash Player shared lib (libflashplayer.so) all strings that were in the same bunch as some known mm.cfg parameters and looked as if they could be parameters themselves. 🙂
If just somebody would take the effort to go over them and test each … 😉
Hi,
I have a problem!
I set “AS3Verbose=1” in mm.cfg file
but there is no log in flashlog.txt
why?