Flash and C# (VS2005)

"Failed to import the ActiveX control"

When using Visual Studio .NET 2005's Designer to drag and drop a Shockwave Flash control (as presented in Embedding and Communicating with the Macromedia Flash Player in C# Windows Applications), you may see the following error:

Failed to import the ActiveX control.  Please ensure it is properly registered.

Additionally, you may see the following warnings:

Warning 1 Could not resolve dependent COM reference "stdole, Version=7.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".[...]
Warning 2 Failed to create the wrapper assembly for type library "AxShockwaveFlashObjects". Exception of type 'Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ComReferenceResolutionException' was thrown. AxShockwaveFlashObjects[...]
Warning 3 The referenced component 'AxShockwaveFlashObjects' could not be found. Failed to create the wrapper assembly for type library "AxShockwaveFlashObjects". Exception of type 'Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ComReferenceResolutionException' was thrown.

Solution

Add the OLE Automation COM reference (stdole) to the project.

"'[...]AxHost.InvalidActiveXStateException' occured in AxInterop.ShockwaveFlashObjects.dll"

When attempting to dynamically embed a Shockwave Flash control (as opposed to using the Designer), you may see the following runtime error:

A first chance exception of type 'System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.InvalidActiveXStateException' occurred in AxInterop.ShockwaveFlashObjects.dll

Solution 1

Hide the parent control before adding the AxShockwaveFlash object.

using System.Windows.Forms;
using AxShockwaveFlashObjects;
using ShockwaveFlashObjects;

[...]

// Create Shockwave Flash object.
AxShockwaveFlash asf_ = new AxShockwaveFlash();

// Add object to parent control, but hide before and show after.  Change "parentControl".
parentControl.Hide();
parentControl.Controls.Add(asf_);
parentControl.Show();

// Load movie.
asf_.LoadMovie(0, "C:\\sample.swf");

// Note: If setting size, do so *after* loading movie.
asf_.Size = new Size(200,200);

Solution 2

Why anyone would do this way, I don't know.

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using AxShockwaveFlashObjects;
using ShockwaveFlashObjects;

[...]

// Create Shockwave Flash object.
AxShockwaveFlash asf_ = new AxShockwaveFlash();

// Add object to parent control.  Change "parentControl".
parentControl.Controls.Add(asf_);

// Change "Form1".
// Note: Side-effects of this method are unknown.
ComponentResourceManager resources = new ComponentResourceManager(typeof(Form1));
asf_.OcxState = ((AxHost.State)(resources.GetObject("asf_.OcxState")));
((ISupportInitialize)(asf_)).EndInit();

// Load movie.
asf_.LoadMovie(0, "C:\\sample.swf");

// Note: If setting size, do so *after* loading movie.
asf_.Size = new Size(200,200);