Beginner question.

[ASWC]

:) Not afraid to ask a beginner question! A customer sent me a .fla file with some settings that doesn't allow any instance name to be referenced in code. Give an instance name to anything and try to reference in code is always null! Worse, now all my files I open in Flash CS4 do the same and throw errors all over since no instance names work anymore. Where is the settings that can stop this nightmare? please, please, please and thank you!

[Eralmidia]

I'm sure you've already checked this, but in the file -> actionscript settings, is the 'Automatically decalre stage instances' checked?