Cannot run the AIR demos
TroubleshootingSummary
Description
The Problem
An AIR application has a descriptor file, <APP-NAME>-app.xml which contains information about the application. This file is specific for the AIR version.
If one attempts to run an AIR application with a descriptor for AIR 3.1 (Flex 4.6) using the AIR runtime version 2.6 (Flex 4.5), the attempt will fail without an error message - the application just won't run. If one attempts to debug this application, he will get an error message, though:
Process terminated without establishing connection to debugger.
Output from command:
invalid application descriptor: descriptor version does not match runtime version
Another common error which is also caused by a mismatch of descriptor and debug launcher is a validation error:
VerifyError: Error #1014: Class IIMEClient could not be found.
Solution
The cause of the problem is the namespace definition in the application tag. Open the <APP_NAME>-app.xml and replace the line
<application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/3.1">
with
<application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/2.6">
and re-run the application. You may have to change the mxml (e.g. add a whitespace to a comment) to force Flex Builder to rebuild the project.
When the demos are compiled using the provided build script the descriptor files are generated from the template which comes with the Flex SDK. Hence, the correct versions will be chosen automatically.