It should come as no surprise that ActionScript3 (Flex/Flash) are second class citizens in the Facebook app world.

But, that doesn’t make it any less frustrating, when you encounter it.

The most recent turn appears to involve the app installing itself into the users account. This used to work swimmingly well. Now, all of a sudden, I’m discovering my potential users can’t install. They never get the ‘Allow’ dialog and the app just hangs on connection.

Various tests show that all of my Flex/Flash, apps and test platforms do this, so it’s not just the app in question. The PHP tests, of course, work swimmingly well.

Other AS3 app developers have noticed this, too, and have had to implement a range of workarounds to fix it. I think FB has screwed up their permissions files for AS3. It would be nice to get FB’s attention to figure out what went wrong, or Adobe’s, but that’s like trying to get through to MS. All you can do is spatter messages on the boards and pray.

So, I’m in the middle of figuring out how to do the workarounds and still stay in the AS3 codespace. Another alternative is to let PHP set up the session and then the Flex app can just attach itself to that session.

Of course, once I get this many-days-endeavor implemented, FB will fix it, and everything will work properly as it did before, in the original context.

But, should they mess up again, the workaround will be a good failsafe against that.

Grouse, grouse. Ommm, Ommm.