Event.MOUSE_LEAVE not working in AS3

Question

I just tossed this super simple code example into a Flash CS4 IDE frame script, but it doesn't output anything in the console. I'm simply rolling over my mouse over the window, not clicking anything, and nothing is happening. Why doesn't this work as I expect?

stage.addEventListener(Event.MOUSE_LEAVE, traceMouse);

function traceMouse(Evt:Event):void
 {
 trace("Mouse Left Stage");
 }

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[EDIT] i find Event.MOUSE_LEAVE incredibly useless. first, it doesn't work in the testing environment (on Flash CS4 for Mac OS X, at least). second, it doesn't fire if MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN is currently active:

Flash CS4 Professional ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference:

Updated 8/11/09: Added qualification that event is not fired when button is pressed.1

in my particular situation, i wanted MOUSE_LEAVE to fire while i was dragging an object so that in the event the user drags his/her mouse pointer off of the stage it would fire stopDrag(). since that's not possible i've decided to use MOUSE_OUT on the actual object rather than MOUSE_LEAVE on the object's parent or stage.

 private function mouseDownHandler(evt:MouseEvent):void
  {
  object.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, mouseOutHandler);
  object.startDrag(false, pullBounds);
  }

 private function mouseUpHandler(evt:MouseEvent):void
  {
  object.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, mouseOutHandler);
  object.stopDrag();
  }

 private function mouseOutHandler(evt:MouseEvent):void
  {
  object.stopDrag();
  }

Answer 1

Here's a couple additional tricky things to know (when running in a browser) :

One bizarre thing is that in Chrome + Firefox, the MOUSE_LEAVE event isn't dispatched for a WMODE of OPAQUE orTRANSPARENT. It just doesn't fire - mouse down or up.

With WINDOW it works fine. That one took me a long time to find out! grr... http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-892

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Second, make sure you're using Event for the parameter type for your Event.MOUSE_LEAVE handler and not MouseEvent. If you try to handle MOUSE_LEAVE with e:MouseEvent you'll get an error that you may never see (unless you're using the debug flash player). It's a very easy mistake to make because you're probably pointing all your other handlers to the same method.

Here's what I do: (just call my main endDrag from mouseLeave(e:Event)

stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, drag);
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, endDrag);
stage.addEventListener(Event.DEACTIVATE, endDrag);
stage.addEventListener(Event.MOUSE_LEAVE, mouseLeave);

private function mouseLeave(e:Event):void
{
    endDrag(new MouseEvent("MOUSE_LEAVE"));
}

public function endDrag(evt:MouseEvent):void
{
    /// handle end drag
}

Answer 2

I don't think this specific event works in the authoring environment, try publishing a html wrapper and running it in your browser.