TechNote

Extremely large Flash applications may compile incorrectly (Flash CS3, Flash CS4 Professional)

Issue

Extremely large Adobe Flash CS3/CS4 applications may fail to compile resulting in a blank Test Movie window or a blank SWF output file.

Unfortunately, there is no unique number that qualifies as too much. However, this issue is known to happen with Flash applications made up of thousands of lines of code, numerous very large objects, or a great number of small classes.

Reason

This is a known issue with the JVM compiler inside of Flash authoring.Adobe is considering possible solutions.

Solution

When designing a Flash application, it is best practice to build it with multiple smaller objects which can be compiled independently. This may be done by as follows:

Create custom components (SWC). Learn more about Creating Action Script 3 Components.
Use various SWF files which can be accessed dynamically. Learn more on dynamically loading SWF files using the Loader Class (Action Script 3)

Doing so will not only prevent the issue described in this document, but will also speed up the compile time of your application.