Question

I have been trying to fix the above error since yesterday late into the night.
Today i tried again for many hours. I learned a great deal and understand a lot more. I found some things along the way and fixed them, unfortunatly the error persisted.

I now know for example
that the above error indicates that one of the objects being targeted by my code is out of scope.
Caused possibly by:

1. It being declared but not instantiated

2. It doesn’t have an instance name (or the instance name is misspelled)

3. It does not exist in the frame where that code is trying to talk to it

4. It is animated into place but is not assigned instance names in every keyframe for it

5. It is one of two or more consecutive keyframes of the same objects with no name (or a different name) assigned in the preceding frame(s).

This is the error line where it goes wrong:

if (back.collisions.hitTestPoint(player.x + leftBumpPoint.x,player.y + leftBumpPoint.y,true))

So it has to be something with back or collosions…

1. I checked and it’s not a misspeled instance
   BTW back is a background movieclip with Back instance and it contains the collisions image with instance Collisions

2. it is being declared (but possibly not right)

3. Could be the cause. frame 1 is the preloader. frame 2 is the menu with a button to start code cat.as. Frame 3 contains the game

4. it only exists on one keyframe so it isn’t mistake number 4

5. it only exists on one keyframe so it isn’t mistake number 5

So it’s most likely number 3.

What i think happens is that i click on the button and it immediatly wants to run cat.as before going to frame 3. How should i solve this. I’m thinking of placing the game on frame 2 but offscreen.
I would very much like feedback on this, please. Thanks

My code: EDIT: i gave the var public

package 
{
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.events.KeyboardEvent;
import flash.ui.Keyboard;
import flash.geom.Point;

public class Cat extends MovieClip
{

    public var leftPressedfBoolean = false;
    public var rightPressed:Boolean = false;
    public var upPressed:Boolean = false;
    public var downPressed:Boolean = false;

    public var leftBumping:Boolean = false;
    public var rightBumping:Boolean = false;
    public var upBumping:Boolean = false;
    public var downBumping:Boolean = false;

    public var leftBumpPoint:Point = new Point(-30,-55);
    public var rightBumpPoint:Point = new Point(30,-55);
    public var upBumpPoint:Point = new Point(0,-120);
    public var downBumpPoint:Point = new Point(0,0);

    public var scrollX:Number = 0;
    public var scrollY:Number = 500;

    public var xSpeed:Number = 0;
    public var ySpeed:Number = 0;

    public var speedConstant:Number = 4;
    public var frictionConstant:Number = 0.9;
    public var gravityConstant:Number = 1.8;
    public var jumpConstant:Number = -35;
    public var maxSpeedConstant:Number = 18;

    public var doubleJumpReady:Boolean = false;
    public var upReleasedInAir:Boolean = false;

    public var keyCollected:Boolean = false;
    public var doorOpen:Boolean = false;

    public var currentLevel:int = 1;

    public var animationState:String = "idle";

    public var bulletList:Array = new Array();
    public var enemyList:Array = new Array();
    public var bumperList:Array = new Array();

    public var player:Player;
    public var back:Back;
    public var sky:Sky;
    public var collisions:Collisions;
    public var visuals:Visuals;
    public var other:Other;
    public var doorKey:DoorKey;

    public function Cat()
    {
        addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
    }

    public function init(e:Event):void

{
        player = new Player();
        back = new Back();
        sky = new Sky();
        visuals = new Visuals();
        other = new Other();            
        collisions = new Collisions();
        doorKey = new DoorKey();

        stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, keyDownHandler);
        stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP, keyUpHandler);
        stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, loop);
        addEnemiesToLevel1();
        addBumpersToLevel1();
    }

    public function addEnemiesToLevel1():void
    {
        addEnemy(620, -115);
        addEnemy(900, -490);
        addEnemy(2005, -115);
        addEnemy(1225, -875);
    }

    public function addBumpersToLevel1():void
    {
        addBumper(500, -115);
        addBumper(740, -115);
    }


    public function loop(e:Event):void
    {
        if (back.collisions.hitTestPoint(player.x + leftBumpPoint.x,player.y + leftBumpPoint.y,true))
        {
            //trace("leftBumping");
            leftBumping = true;
        }
        else
        {
            leftBumping = false;
        }

Answer 1

Add this before your if statement to see which item is missing:

trace("back "+back);
trace("back.collisions "+back.collisions);
trace("player.x "+player.x);
trace("leftBumpPoint.x "+leftBumpPoint.x);
trace("player.y "+player.y);
trace("leftBumpPoint.y "+leftBumpPoint.y);