Best Tools for Debugging Flash ActionScript 3 (AS3)

Question

Does anyone want to share the best debugging tools they have found for Actionscript 3 (AS3) and Flash CS5?

I've just done a search and found a few, but would love to hear from people who've actually used any of them. (In order of 'most promising')

• Adobe Scout - Adobe Scout is the next-generation profiling tool for Adobe Flash Player and AIR
• De MonsterDebugger - open source AIR app that allows introspection and live tweaking
• Thunderbold AS3 Console - AIR app that allows introspection of SWFs via Flash Debugger logfile
• Arthropod - another AIR app that can inspect SWFs
• Luminic Box Flash Inspector (example online, but can't seem to find source code)
• DPanel - simple, built-in to but good features to do live tracking of variables
• Alcon - looks to have some good timing and profiling features
• Print_R Inspector - supports older FlashMX, not sure about AS3
• Tracer - Better debugging in AS3 - enhanced trace() functions
• Debugging AS3 with Firebug
• Flash CS5 built-in debugger - works only on breakpoints, unable to track variables live without using trace()
• Output panel from Senocular
• Xray (The AdminTool) - AS1+AS2 only

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Screenshots...

Adobe Scout:

_{(source: adobe.com)}

De MonsterDebugger:

_{(source: demonsterdebugger.com)}

Thunderbird AS3 Console:

_{(source: googlecode.com)}

Luminic Box:

http://img1.UploadScreenshot.com/images/main/2/4406392687.jpg

Senocular:

Xray:

_{(source: osflash.org)}

Solution 1

Adobe Scout, the official debugger by Adobe

Copied from official web site

Works with any SWF

Use Scout to profile and optimize any SWF whether it runs on mobile devices, desktops, or in browsers. And you don't need special debug versions - profile your games in the commercially available Flash Player.

No code changes

Scout works automatically, without any changes in your code. Profile your content in-context with very little effort, find hotspots in no-time.

Project lifecycle use

Scout helps you early in development by detecting problems before you do. Then use the same sophisticated analysis tools on production systems after your game is released.

Mobile profiling? Yes!

A video introduction is available on youtube

Solution 2

Flashbuilder has almost everything I need. On top of that, I use JPAuclair's preload profiler , and an in-house developed equivalent to X-Ray.

Solution 3

DeMonsterDebugger.com has a lot of features (their site describes it best).

• Tracing messages
• Introspection of your application structure
• Testing methods
• Editing properties
• Finding performance issues

And open source! :-)

_{(source: demonsterdebugger.com)}

Solution 4

SWFWire Debugger can:

• Trace method calls
• Trace object allocation
• Graph frame rate
• Graph memory usage
• Edit properties
• Visually select DisplayObjects similar to FireBug.

It's also open source, and requires no code modifications.

Disclaimer: I wrote this application

Solution 5

Personally I like to use Amethyst... http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Products/amethyst-ide/Amethyst-Product-Page

View more solutions

Comments

[Daniel]

added scout - wasn't available at the this this was asked, but is pretty much the best tool for debugging today

[ocodo]

+1 for FlashBuilder debugger, there is virtually no reason to use anything else, unless you have some very odd things happening with a deployed SWF.

[Simon East]

Yeah looks good. Thanks for the tip (and the screenshot) Scott!

[Simon East]

Is Amethyst more like a full Flex IDE?

[Jason King]

Amethyst is a language plugin for Visual Studio (but you can use the free version of Visual Studio). Besides integrating directly into the Visual Studio debugger, it also provides an array of flash and flex source editing integrations.

[Simon East]

I haven't used Scout, but it looks more like a profiling/performance-tuning tool than a debugger. Would that be true? Like does it have a console and code-step-through facilities?

[novwhisky]

I just found DeMonsterDebugger today and it looks really interesting, however I noticed it's license is GPLv3. Given that you have to compile a SWC into your project, does that mean all my code is infected by the license?

[alxx]

I guess you don't have to link release version with debugger.

[Pavel P]

It's 5 years since that post, and I tried to find something that could do live debugging of actionscript in swf running live on a web page. So far I don't see anything from adobe that could do that, Flash Builder is complete joke. I just tried Amethyst and within an hour I was debugging live AS3 code! Too bad it seems to be somewhat abandoned now, but it looks great imo. It would be super cool it it allowed to debug js as well, so that I could see stack traces of js/actions script calling each other.