Fixing the “*** Building code hint cache ***” warning in Flash CS5 Pro
I have been battling with Flash CS5 Pro for the last few weeks with it not giving me any code hinting. Whenever I would do something and expect a code hint window, I would instead get nothing, except for a small yellow triangle with exclamation in the bottom right of the code window. Rolling over that icon gave the tool-tip “*** Building code hint cache ***”. After searching around online I found a lot of people complaining about the code hinting engine in Flash Pro, however the blogged-about solutions I found got me nowhere, and no one seemed to be addressing this specific warning message.
After thinking about how the code hinting system might work, I took a look at my opened files in Flash Pro. I had a lot of them open, mostly because I switch between a lot of projects in any given day. I know that the code hinting only works on an AS file when it’s properly associated with an open AS3 FLA file, and I had that, however what I also noticed was that I also had an AS2 FLA open, and it happened to be the first file opened in the set. So with little expectation I closed the AS2 FLA, closed Flash and re-opened it, and code hinting was miraculously revived.
Moral of the story is, the code hinting engine is quirky, if it’s not working it can very well be due to the files you have opened. I have Flash set to re-open my last opened files when it starts up. So if you have that configured be extra careful, and when in doubt, close all of your files and start fresh.
